Carcharodons: Outer Dark Page 7

  They arrived at a spherical chamber, lit by a smouldering firepit set in its centre. Open tunnels and closed metal doorways led off in half a dozen directions around them. The junction was almost completely silent, only the low crackle of the flames and the steady drip of some underground leak reaching the Space Marines’ senses. A feeling of unease began to creep over Khauri, causing him to grip his stave tighter. Why had they abandoned the others and come all the way down here, to this dead, deserted place?

  ‘Ease your mind, my young brother,’ Te Kahurangi said, and stepped towards one of the barred doors. Its surface was emblazoned with an eye symbol, almost lost amidst the streaks of rust and fungal growths that blotched the metal. The Pale Nomad rapped his force staff against it three times, the clacking noise echoing away up the adjoining tunnels.

  There was a thud, and the slow, torturous scrape of ancient bolts. The door groaned as it swung inwards, revealing a stooped figure backlit by the crimson light of red electro-candles. It was a Space Marine, but he wore a dark grey robe rather than power armour, and leaned on a bone staff not dissimilar to Te Kahurangi’s. Like the Pale Nomad, he seemed ancient – his hair was white, lying lankly about his shoulders, and his flesh was a knotted patchwork of old scars. One eye was milky and white, while the other stared at the two Carcharodons with feverish intensity. After a moment realisation seemed to dawn, and a smile split the old warrior’s ravaged features.

  ‘Tis not a dream,’ the figure said in High Gothic, taking a step out of his chamber. ‘Nor some damned waking vision. Pale Nomad, you have come back to me.’

  Te Kahurangi grasped the figure’s forearm and drew him in close.

  ‘Arathar,’ the Carcharodon said. ‘It does me well to see you again, after all these years.’

  ‘And I you,’ Arathar said, pressing his brow against Te ­Kahurangi’s. ‘Welcome home, brother.’

  There are few places in the blessed and holy Imperium more sacred to the memory of our warrior-martyrs than Hypasitis. It stands alongside Tanikle and Last Rest as among the largest cemetery worlds in the Segmentum Obscura. Home to – at last count – the Throne-blessed remains of eighty billion loyal servants of the God-Emperor, it is a place of homage for hundreds of millions of mourners each Terran year, and forms a keystone in the long pilgrimage routes trodden by the faithful. Ministered to eternally by the Necropolis Guilds and mortuary-archivists, it has provided a fitting place of rest for those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice in the defence of our glorious inheritance since the 37th millennium. From the Crypt of the First Heroes, where the remains of the first to fall against the Archenemy’s invasion lie, to the Frescos of the Obsidians, those mysterious grey-clad champions who came in the hour of our need, a mourn-visitor will find plenty of sites worthy of their time, prayers and remembrance tokens. Whether the bones of your forefathers lie in its sacred soil, or whether you simply wish to pay back a fraction of the infinite respect all loyal Imperial citizens owe to our saviours, Hypasitis should be your first and final stop.

  – Extract from the Jorus Introductory Brochure and Guide to Hypasitis, World of Martyrs (Ninety-third edition, reprinted 755.M41, publication paid for by the Hill of Silence Necropolis Guild), page xii.

  _________ Chapter IV

  The primary skyrail line could carry over a thousand wealthy mourners and martyrologists from the disembarkation zone at the Thalastian Jorus star port to the Imperial Cenotaph on the Hill of Silence in under an hour. Today, however, its black-draped, skull-embossed carriages seemed greatly underused – besides Rannik and her companion there was only one other occupant in their section of the transport. She sat in the far corner, alone, features hidden behind a mourning veil, shrouded in the silken folds of her black Shontii-style dress. All of the other seats were unoccupied. Rannik wondered whether the carriage’s near-abandonment was the work of the man sitting opposite her, staring out of the skyrail’s window.

  Cyril Sebastian Vex. She had met him once before, during joint ordo operations unearthing the Skyla Heresy on Donaris, five years previously. He was Legate Inquisitor Frain’s chief of staff, one of Lord Inquisitor Rozenkranz’s close allies and, by extension, an ally of his successor, Inquisitor Nzogwu. He had an experienced, rigid air to him, from his close-fitting black combat jacket, upright posture and clipped mode of speech to the flamer scars that had left one half of his face a mess of twisted, puckered white flesh. Definitely ex-Militarum or Arbites, though Rannik had never asked which. He knew she still bore her own Adeptus Arbites badge and tag, but he had never offered any opinion on her life before joining Nzogwu’s retinue.

  ‘Impressive, isn’t it,’ he said now, clearly sensing her attention. She followed his gaze out of the skyrail’s window, the black drapes that covered the carriage’s flanks tied back to reveal the passing scenery of the cemetery world of Hypasitis.

  A sad, slate-grey sky matched an equally grim landscape of memorials and headstones. The skyrail was mounted upon a great, winding viaduct that carried the black-painted locomotive over and around the millions of sprawling mausoleums, reliquary shrines and obelisks that covered so much of Hypasitis’ surface. The viaduct itself was a miles-long tomb, its stout stone arches inset with a million coffin slats and its cement mixed with the bone-dust of the faithful.

  ‘Approximately eighty billion martyred souls reside within the hallowed ground of this cemetery world,’ Vex said, quoting from the black-bound brochure lying on the table between them. ‘A testimony to the fact that the God-Emperor does not forget those who give their all in the eternal struggle against heresy and corruption.’

  ‘The seventh Black Crusade,’ Rannik replied, watching the twin gothic spires of a crypt-cathedral as they passed it and its adjoining grave basilicas. ‘Launched by the forces of the Dark Gods from the Ocularis Terribus in 811.M37. Halted on the world of Mackan and then finally turned back over the course of the Ghost War.’

  ‘You are a student of history then, Miss Rannik?’ Vex asked.

  ‘Top of my class in the progenium, Mister Vex,’ she replied, turning her gaze from the morbid scenery back to Frain’s operative. His eyes were pale, almost sad, the left one half lost amidst the knots of old scar tissue. ‘Though I admit most of the voyage here was spent conducting additional research.’

  ‘I’d expect nothing less from an arbitrator.’

  Rannik sensed the dangling hook of a question, but ignored it, returning her gaze to the passing tombs. If Frain’s man wanted to learn more about Nzogwu’s retinue, he would have to try harder.

  Vex had met her at the Thalastian Jorus star port, when she had made planetfall that morning. As well as conducting her to the skyrail he had delivered an encrypted data-slate bearing an astropathic translation from Nzogwu, transmitted before Vex had made the short warp jump from Amistel to Hypasitis. Rannik had read its contents with trepidation, but the news had been good. The raid on DeVree’s estates had gone well. The ex-governor had been knocked out of the game at the expense of a flesh wound on Tibalt and the loss of one of Ro’s combat servitors. Nzogwu was sure he was closing in on the conspiracy’s ringleader. He estimated another week at most, followed by another five or six spent conducting trials and building pyres – the public face of the inquisition, made manifest after so much time spent conducting covert operations.

  The slate had been date-tagged over a month ago. Rannik wondered how things had progressed since then. Had her own suspicions about the Ux Cartel been correct? Were their corpses smouldering in the market squares of each of Kora’s agri-collectives, the stench of burned flesh mixing with the summer scents of pollen and freshly harvested weave-grain? A part of her was still unhappy with her reassignment, and struggled to accept being taken off the case after so many months of slow, tedious investigation.

  The nightmares reminded her that what she was doing now was important. They had redoubled since Nzogwu had dispatched her to Hypasitis, exacerbated by the weeks
spent locked in the immaterium. The precise details changed, but the motifs that haunted her remained consistent – she would wake up in her cabin berth slicked with sweat, heart pounding, her thoughts full of grey phantoms, claustrophobic rock tunnels and wicked, blood-slick claws. It had been the same ever since she had joined Nzogwu’s retinue a decade earlier.

  Ever since Zartak, and the coming of the black-eyed monsters that called themselves the Carcharodon Astra.

  A bell, linked from carriage to carriage by a cord that ran the length of the locomotive, gave out a single sonorous chime. Rannik started.

  ‘Five minutes,’ Vex said, pocketing the brochure that had been on the table and tugging his fatigue jacket straight. Outside the funerary landscape had become even more crowded as the skyrail passed beneath the graven mortuary arches and entered the Palace of Martyrs, Hypasitis’ largest necropolis city. Rannik stood and dragged her kitbag down from the overhead rack, refusing the assistance of one of the blackened, chrome-plated luggage servitors.

  ‘Sozel will meet us beneath the Pillar of the Broken Angel,’ Vex said as the skyrail’s clattering began to die away and the carriage slowed. Rannik nodded, glancing up and down the aisle while she shouldered her bag.

  Though she hadn’t noticed it, at some point during their journey the carriage’s only other occupant, the woman in black, had gone.

  The mourning wind was gusting hard as they disembarked into the morgue streets that wound about the foot of the Hill of Silence. Unlike the skyrail, the lanes running between the reliquary stalls and trinket-sellers were packed, full of the bustle brought by – according to the brochure – the six hundred million mourners, pilgrims and supplicants who visited Hypasitis’ grave-surface every Terran year. Those pressing around Rannik and Vex presented a black-clad sea, dressed as they were in the funerary garb purchased by visitors on arrival. The men wore wide-brimmed black hats and capes over their attire, while women were swathed in mourning veils and shawls. The poorest – the barefooted pilgrims who came to Hypasitis as part of the great decades-long trail to Holy Terra – tied black scraps of cloth about their tonsured heads and around the tips of their walking staffs, or draped them over the shoulders of their threadbare habits.

  Neither Rannik nor Vex were similarly attired, and their more practical clothing drew glances. Vex seemed not to mind, forging them a path up the lower slopes where the shacks of those peddling near-illegible rolls of honour and chips of martyr bone leaned against the crumbling tombs of the Lesser Dead. Everywhere the symbols of mortality – skulls, bones, withered roses, the God-Emperor’s reaping angel, skeletal aquilas – dominated the architecture of stalls and mausoleums alike. Rannik had travelled to many places with Nzogwu since joining his retinue, certainly further than she had ever believed she would venture when she had been assigned to her first sub-precinct on the prison colony of Zartak. In all that time though she had never experienced the grim, sprawling mass of architecture that constituted a cemetery world. For all her preparations it was impossible to avoid the crushing chill of finality that pervaded everything around her. How anyone could live their entire lives amidst Hypasitis’ grey, wind-whipped tomb cities was beyond her.

  Vex paused to buy stale gritbread and protein jelly from one of the vendors, a stall set against an obelisk whose inscriptions had long ago been eroded away to nothing. Rannik hadn’t eaten since making planetfall – despite the vile taste, she devoured the food as they climbed higher.

  ‘How much does it usually cost to perform an act of remembrance at the Imperial Cenotaph?’ she asked Vex as they went. The crowds had started to thin as the lanes grew ever steeper. Occasionally they were forced to one side by a growling hauler transport, its black hull and tinted windows reflecting the stares of those it passed by. Only the wealthiest of Hypasitis’ visitors could afford to hire out such luxury.

  ‘It depends,’ Vex answered. ‘There’s a minimum threshold, but payment can be made in different ways. The Office of Tribute assesses the proposal of each supplicant when they arrive. The queues can stretch all the way to the Militarum Barrows five miles south of here. It takes days to clear them.’

  Not for the first time, Rannik gave silent thanks that the authority of the ordos allowed them to bypass the Imperium’s sprawling bureaucracy. The sloping pathways around her were now almost deserted, occasional patrols of frateris militia with black-wrapped autoguns checking the passes of those headed towards the hill’s summit. Vex had clearly made his preparations well in advance – nobody impeded them, despite the unbecoming nature of their appearance.

  ‘That’s the place,’ Vex said, a little short of breath. Rannik looked up. On the horizon, looming amidst the bristling stone forest of obelisks, statues and spires that crowned the Hill of Silence, was the imposing bulk of the Imperial Cenotaph. Countless war banners and standards, pale and ragged with age, flapped from its stone flanks, while the eyes of ten thousand Imperial martyrs glared down with graven finality upon the necropolis sprawling beneath them. Rannik assumed the Cenotaph and the great mass of the grave-city’s most prominent architecture was their final destination, but Vex’s gesture drew her attention to the right of the tomb-lane they were currently climbing.

  A black iron fence and ivy-encrusted lich gate separated a memorial carving from the crumbling mausoleums around it. The monument, while still vast, was only a minor one in comparison with those clustering towards the hill’s crest. It was a pillar surmounted by the kneeling form of a Space Marine, his armour cracked and broken, helmet raised towards the grey heavens. Two angelic wings rose from his back, though – whether by artifice or because of time’s erosion – one was broken. On the dying Space Marine’s pauldron, only just legible through the lichens that clung to much of the statue, was a teardrop sigil, flanked by two bat-like pinyons.

  The small open space around the statue was overgrown with long grasses and weeds, but a figure was visible kneeling before the pillar’s base, seemingly in prayer. He didn’t react to the shriek of ancient hinges as Vex opened the iron gateway and passed beneath the lich arch. Vex flicked a hand signal to Rannik, a perfect display of Arbites riot-cant.

  Follow my lead.

  The two of them approached the figure. He was wearing a mortuary-archivist’s black robes, with the cowl drawn up. As Rannik drew closer, feet swishing through the long grass, she caught the sound of unhealthy, irregular breathing.

  Vex knelt to the figure’s left, mirroring his posture. Rannik did the same to the right, the pillar and its broken champion towering above her.

  ‘There are black shadows over Goransburg,’ Vex said, eyes fixed on the pillar’s base.

  ‘How many?’ wheezed the kneeling figure.

  ‘Five-score and one,’ Vex replied.

  The figure made a grunting noise and retrieved a black walking cane lying in the grass beside him. Vex reached out a hand as he struggled to rise, but the old man snatched his sleeve away. Rannik caught sight of him properly for the first time – if Vex had told her he had been resurrected from Hypasitis’ graves she wouldn’t have been surprised. His flesh was sagging and discoloured, spotted with age marks, and his eyes were milky and pale, one befouled by cataracts. A respirator-unit, sutured into his throat, was the source of the unhealthy wheezing that accompanied his every breath.

  ‘It’s been some time, Vex,’ the aged man said after he had regained his feet and brushed the grass off the hem of his robe. ‘Frain still not managed to get you killed yet?’

  ‘As the God-Emperor wills,’ Vex said, gesturing towards Rannik. ‘Arbitrator Rannik, this is Mortuary-Archivist Dolorous Sozel.’

  ‘You’re Nzogwu’s girl?’ Sozel asked, turning his rheumy eyes on her. She nodded.

  ‘I am Warden Jade Rannik of the Adeptus Arbites, currently seconded as an ordo operative to the retinue of Inquisitor Augim Nzogwu. I carry his full authority, and his seal.’

  Sozel grimaced, but nod
ded.

  ‘Nzogwu, that young pup. All of his mentor’s fiery ambition, none of his wisdom or learning. Old Rozenkranz would be twisting in his shroud.’ The archivist struggled to make the sign of the aquila while still resting on his cane, a fit of coughs wracking his decrepit body. Rannik managed to stifle a retort.

  ‘Well come on then,’ he snapped after a wheezing recovery, pausing to spit a wad of phlegm into the long grass about the statue’s base. ‘I’ve taken time out of the data inscription crypt to be here, and we’ll get nothing done when darkness falls.’

  ‘Lead on, Sozel,’ Vex said.

  Rannik threw him a pointed glance, but he merely shrugged.

  ‘I’m glad you’ve made such an effort to stand out,’ Sozel ­grumbled as they passed out beneath the lich arch and began to climb higher, towards the Cenotaph. ‘Your clothing doesn’t befit someone visiting the Blessed Graves of Hypasitis. It makes your silly little code phrases and cyphers seem even more ridiculous.’

  ‘I didn’t bring a mourning dress,’ Rannik responded. ‘Partly because I don’t own one, and partly because I’m an ordo operative on a priority mission. Now, tell me where we are going.’

  ‘To visit the Obsidians,’ Sozel said, gesturing towards the Cenotaph that now towered over them, the chill of its looming shadow sending a shiver up Rannik’s spine. ‘They’re most clearly visible on the frescos around the Imperial Cenotaph’s base walls. I will show you the most detailed in person, but there are many more.’