Graham McNeill: A Thousand Sons

Maat crushed the mass of crystals, letting it spill from his hand like dust.

“Surely you can muster something better than that?”

“Enough,” said Ahriman. “Hold your powers in check, both of you. They are not for vulgar

displays, especially when there are mortals nearby.”

“Then why keep them around?” asked Maat. “Simply send her on her way with the others.”

“That’s what I keep telling him,” said Phosis T’kar. “If she’s so damn keen to learn of the

Crusade, send her to a Legion that cares about being immortalised, the Ultramarines or Word

Bearers; she doesn’t belong with us.”

It was a familiar sentiment, and Ahriman had heard it a hundred times from all his fellow

captains. T’kar was not the most vocal; that honour belonged to Khalophis of the 6th Fellowship.

Whichever viewpoint T’kar took, Khalophis would emulate more vociferously.

“Should we not be remembered?” countered Ahriman. “The writings of Kallista Eris are among

the most insightful I have read from the Remembrancer Order. Why should we be left out of the

annals of the Great Crusade?”

“You know why,” said Phosis T’kar angrily. “Half the Imperium wished us dead not so long

ago. They fear us.”

“They fear what they do not understand,” said Ahriman. “The primarch tells us their fear comes

from ignorance. Knowledge will be our illumination to banish that fear.”

Phosis T’kar grunted and carved spirals in the salt with his thoughts.

“The more they know, the more they’ll fear us. You mark my words,” he said.

Ahriman ignored Phosis T’kar and stepped out from the shelter of the canopy. The sensations of

travelling in his subtle body were all but gone, and the mundane nature of the material world

returned to him: the searing heat that had turned his skin the colour of mahogany within an hour of

the Stormbird touching down, the oily sweat coating his iron hard flesh and the crisp scent of the air,

a mixture of burnt salt and rich spices.

And the swirling aetheric winds that swept the surface of this world.

Ahriman felt power coursing through his body; glittering comet trails of psychic potential aching

to be moulded into something tangible. Over a century of training kept that power fluid, washing

through his flesh like a gentle tide, preventing dangerous levels of aetheric energy from building. It

would be too easy to give in and allow it free rein, but Ahriman knew only too well the danger that

represented. He reached up and touched the silver oakleaf worked into his right shoulder-guard, and

calmed his aetheric field with a deep breath and a whispered recitation of the Enumerations.

Ahriman looked up at the towering mountain, wondering at the vast power of its makers and

what the primarch was doing inside it. Until the power to far-see was taken away, he had not

realised how blind he was.

10

= Page 11 =

“Where he?” hissed Phosis T’kar, echoing his thoughts. is

It had been four hours since Magnus the Red had followed Yatiri and his tribe into the

Mountain, and the tension had been gnawing at their nerves ever since.

“You’re worried about him, aren’t you?” asked Hathor Maat.

“Since when could you master the powers of the Athanaean?” asked Ahriman.

“I don’t need to. I can see you’re both worried,” countered Maat. “It’s obvious.”

“Aren’t you?” asked Phosis T’kar.

“Magnus can look out for himself,” said Hathor Maat. “He told us to wait for him.”

The Primarch of the Thousand Sons had indeed told them to await his return, but Ahriman had a

sick feeling that something was terribly wrong.

“Did you see something?” asked Phosis T’kar, noting Ahriman’s expression. “When you

travelled the Great Ocean, you saw something, didn’t you? Tell me.”

“I saw nothing,” said Ahriman bitterly. He turned and marched back into his pavilion, retrieving

his weapons from a long footlocker of acacia and jade. He bolstered a pistol that was as fine an

example of the armourer’s art as any crafted by the artificers of Vulkan’s Salamanders, its flanks

plated with golden backswept hawk wings and its grip textured with stippled hide.

As well as his pistol, he also bore a long heqa staff of ivory with a hooked blade at its end, its

length gold-plated and reinforced with blue copper bands.

“What are you doing?” asked Hathor Maat when he emerged, accoutred for war.

“I’m taking the Sekhmet into that mountain,” said Ahriman. “Are you coming?”

Lemuel Gaumon reclined against one of the deadstones in the foothills of the enormous mountain,

trying to keep within its shadow and wishing his frame was rather less fulsome. Growing up in the

mid-continental drift-hives of the Nordafrik enclaves, he was used to heat, but this world was

something else entirely.

He wore a long banyan of lightweight linen, colourfully embroidered with interlocking motifs of

lightning bolts, bulls, spirals and numerous other less easily identifiable symbols. It had been woven

by a blind tailor in the Sangha commercia-subsid to his design, the imagery taken from the scrolls

collected in the secret library of his villa in Mobayi. Dark-skinned and shaven-headed, his deep-set

eyes carefully watched the encampment of the Thousand Sons, while he occasionally made notes in

a pad balanced on his thigh.

Perhaps a hundred scarlet pavilions dotted the salt plains, their sides tied up, each home to a

band of Thousand Sons warriors. He’d noted which Fellowships were represented: Ahriman’s

Scarab Occult, Ankhu Anen’s 4th, Khalophis’ 6th, Hathor Maat’s 3rd and Phosis T’kar’s 2nd.

A sizeable war-host of Astartes warriors was encamped before the mountain, the atmosphere

strangely tense, though Lemuel could see no cause for it. It was clear they weren’t expecting

trouble, but it was equally clear something was troubling them.

Lemuel closed his eyes and let his consciousness drift on the invisible currents of power that

rippled in the air like a heat haze. Though his eyes were shut, he could feel the energy of this world

like a vivid canvas of colour, brighter than the greatest works of Serena d’Angelus or Kelan Roget.

Beyond the deadstones, the mountain was a black wall of nothingness, a cliff of utter darkness as

solid and as impenetrable as adamantium.

But further out into the salt flats, the world was alive with colour.

The Thousand Sons encampment was a blazing inferno of shifting colours and light, like an

atomic explosion frozen at the instant of detonation. Even amid that blazing illumination, some

lights shone brighter than others, and three such minds were gathered beneath where Lemuel knew

Captain Ahriman’s pavilion was pitched. Something preyed upon these minds, and he dearly wished

he was strong enough to venture closer. A bright mind, a supernova amongst guttering candles,

normally burned at the heart of the encampment, but not today.

11

= Page 12 =

Perhaps that was the source of the Thousand Sons’ tension.

Their great leader was in absentia.

Frustrated, Lemuel’s mind drifted away from the Thousand Sons, and he let it approach the

sunken dwellings of the Aghoru. Cut into the dry earth, they were as dark and lifeless as the

Thousand Sons were bright and vital. The Aghoru people were as barren as the salt plain, without

the slightest spark of a presence within them.

He opened his eyes, exhaling and reciting the Mantra of the Sangoma to calm his racing