Extremus Fors Chapter 46
Deep within the Storm Herald's Fortress-Monastery Jubila knelt in chains. The warlord was naked, his corrupted physique on display for all to see, not that there was anyone to witness his magnificent form. His injuries had been so severe he had been unable to resist the Storm Heralds, but long days on their journey back to their moist homeworld and days of incarceration following had seen his genhanced body rebuild itself. Bound hand and leg and neck all Jubila could do was wait and find out what the Storm Heralds wanted to do with him.
To pass the time he cast his eyes over the walls of his cell. For the millionth time he counted the drab grey flecks in the rockface, coming up with the same number each time. Illumination was provided by a single electro-sconce in the wall, minimal lighting but more than enough for his eyes to see by. Beads of moisture hung on those walls and there was a strong sense of brine in the air, indicating he was somewhere near the ocean. That was useful to know.
He'd been on this island once before and knew there were endless tunnels below the surface, plenty of space to get lost in. Jubila was confident once he was out of this cell he could kill his guards and escape into the depths. Then with his superior skills he would evade any plodding pursuers. Getting off the island would be trickier, stealing a boat would be hard, and he lacked the sorcerous knowledge to open a warp-portal. Doubtful it would work anyway, Astartes wrapped their homes in layers of psychic baffling to prevent anyone getting in or out without their say-so. Jubila didn't worry though, plans were for dullards, he would simply wait for the universe to provide a way, it always did.
As he waited for the universe to get into gear he imagined all the inventive ways he would kill his guards, and they were many. He had just catalogued the forty-ninth way to extract someone's internal organs when a scrape at the door drew his attention. An iron barricade swung wide, blasting him with ferocious light. Cheap trick, meant to emphasise the power and authority of the figure silhouetted. Jubila was not impressed.
Into the cell stepped two Marines, the young Librarian Arvael and a sterner warrior Jubila took to be his master. What was his name, Jubila had learned it once in expectation of a fight that never came, Echeb, that was it. The pair stepped within and glared down at him; judgement in their eyes.
Jubila lifted his head and grinned, "I'll break my fast with some pickled eels, three slices of grilled grains and a mug of Tanna."
"You mock us," Arvael spat.
"Not much else to do," Jubila sniffed, "Unless one of you lads brought a deck of cards?"
"Enjoy your petty jibes, they will avail you not," Echeb uttered.
"Then shall we move straight to the execution? Lovely, I was starting to think you planned to bore me to death."
"Nothing so easy or so fast," Echeb growled, "You shall not pass quickly."
"You sound like a wetnurse inspecting a baby's loincloth," Jubila goaded.
"Trying to anger us will not work either," Echeb spat, "Your fate is set."
"Then I suppose I should make my last confession... Where to begin... Ah yes, I once went into a Sororitas convent, leading a pack of Fuqpigs. Ever seen those, some of Slaanesh's lesser-known creations, manhoods as big as a tree branch, and spiked like a feline's. You should have heard the bolter bitches scream when I let my pets off the leach, though it wasn't all in pain, I can tell you."
"You filthy degenerate!" Arvael spat furiously.
"There was this one waif, little nun, blonde with freckles. I took my time with her, made sure my pets didn't let her die, until they'd all had a turn."
"Scum!" Arvael cried as his hand fell to his weapon.
Yet Echeb held up a hand and said, "He's trying to provoke you into killing him. Jubila has boasted repeatedly of returning from death. If we kill him, he thinks he will come back, free of our shackles."
"It was worth a try," Jubila shrugged in his chains.
Echeb countered, "You shouldn't be so sure of your resurrection. It seems you fell from Fulgrim's favour. If he resurrects you again it will not be a pleasant experience. Immortality can be a curse."
That hit uncomfortably close to home but Jubila brushed it off, "I can turn his mind, I can be very persuasive. So, kill me and be done, neither of us is getting any younger."
Yet Echeb mused, "How to deal with an enemy who will not stay dead? We could bury this room in Ferrocrete and leave you to be forgotten, but time erodes all things, sooner or later you would get out. We could put you in a ship and send you out beyond the Halo Zone, to greet whatever lurks in the void beyond galaxy. But you'd probably get snapped up by a Tyranid and come straight back. Truly a knotty problem."
Jubila threw his head back and cried, "Gods Below you're boring! Whatever you're going to do, get on with it before..." Echeb's aura flared and Jubila was hit by a blast of white light. He fell into it, sinking into depthless slumber, passing beyond space and time into realms of oblivion. Jubila hung in that light and knew no thought or memory, existing as none-event in spacetime, until it all faded away in an instant.
"...I fall asleep," Jubila uttered as he looked about in surprise. He wasn't where he had been, he was somewhere else, a place he didn't recognise. Metal walls, embossed with Mechanicus icons on three sides, and fourth with a large open door. Jubila was kneeling on a metal plate, surrounded by bulky machines and projector dishes. Servitors hung slack in their sockets, metal implants hanging from dead flesh. Their skin was desiccated and dry, harrowed by the passing of ages until they died. They looked like they hadn't been tended to in centuries, and the machines they were attached to whined as they failed in turn.
Jubila cocked an eyebrow in curiosity but wasted no time to make his escape. Muscles slid over each other as he writhed, bones dislocating and sinews stretching as he oozed out of his chains. It was barely a few minutes work to get free then he stood and stretched with a sigh of contentment. No sign of guards running to stop him was evident so Jubila inspected the machines, poking a few barely flickering panels as he tried to figure out where he was.
Eventually he sighed, "A stasis-field generator. Really Echeb, that's the best you could come up with? You shoved me in stasis and left me to freeze. You truly are an unimaginative dolt. Looks like power is nearly spent, the plasma-reactors are in hypovolemia... they ran till their fuel was exhausted. That's not promising, I could have been here for centuries. Oh well, it's all the same I suppose. Shame, I bet Echeb's dead already. Pity, I would have liked to eat his eyeballs. Still, his trap failed, so I win. I always win."
Pleased with himself Jubila strode from the room, finding a long passage stretched before him. He sauntered down it, passing a variety of dead servitors. A faint tremor in the floor told him artificial gravity was faltering. He was on a ship then, or a station, doubtless somewhere in the middle of nowhere, a place Echeb had guessed no one would ever disturb the jail cell. More fool him. It didn't matter where Jubila was, he could always find a way back.
His walk took him to another cell, this one with a large armourglass window on one side. A strange smear of colour hung in the view, light pulsing faintly in a velvety black backdrop. Even Jubila was given pause and breathed, "Ooooo, pretty."
Then he saw a better sight. In one corner his armour stood, battered and scored but otherwise intact. He hurried over and saw the ancient plate was perfectly preserved, it would take more than a few centuries to degrade his armour. He reached out to touch it but then muttered, "Leaving me my armour, that's not like them. What's the lapdog's game? Oh well, I'm sure it will as dull as everything else about them."
He reached out and took up his plate. Working alone it was not a hasty fit. Power armour was complicated and laborious to mount. Even with servants it could be a tedious process, working alone it was gruelling. Still Jubila persisted, spending several hours donning the fibre-bundle undersheath and exoskeleton, then the Ceramite plates, one by one. Finally dressed he took up his Charnabel sabre and hung it at his hip, as perfect as the day he first grasped it.
Jubila was pleased with his work but then a noise made him spin about. What he found was a flickering Hololith, running off a reserve battery somewhere deep in the station. A Marine in Terminator-armour, fashioned with a psychic hood. Storm Herald blue and bearing icons of High rank, a Chief Librarian, if the warlord was any judge. Jubila didn't recognise the craggy face at first, with an iron-grey goatee, lined with scars and the burden of many years of morally dubious decisions Jubila leaned in and then exclaimed, "Arvael! You got old!"
The recording began to speak, "Jubila. If you are seeing this then the stasis-cage has failed. Two hundred years of labour went into fashioning this facility, lifetimes of effort to craft your cage. We did our best to eke out the power, but we knew nothing lasts forever and you would get out someday. So, I left this message for you."
Jubila rolled his eyes and muttered, "As long-winded and dull as your master."
As if hearing him the recording continued, "My late Master placed you in stasis but we knew it was not a permeant solution. Many nights did he ponder how to remove you entirely, to guarantee nobody would have to suffer your cruelty ever again. But how to eliminate an immortal... his answer was as brilliant as it was elegant."
"Skip to the good bit," Jubila sniffed, "Before you die of old age."
"This," the Hololith said gesturing at the window, "Is the Galactic Maw, the super black hole that lurks at the centre of the Milky Way. You stand in a station hanging just over the event horizon, kept from falling in thanks to the artifice of a certain Martain Magos. His anti-gravity formulas were essential to keep you from dying, perfectly balanced against the gravity well, though not the time-dilation effect."
"Wait," Jubila started, "What?!"
Arvael grinned, "Oh yes, you are standing inside a temporal lens, slowing the passage of moments in comparison to the rest of the galaxy. For every minute you experience, ten years pass for the rest of the universe. Why, just listening to this message cost you twenty years. Putting on your armour, which I know you couldn't resist, cost you another couple of centuries."
"How long have I been here?!" Jubila yelled, "Tell me you old fool!"
Arvael sniffed, "We can't be sure, but our Martian adept judges that by the time the station's energy reserves dwindle you will be roughly half-a-billion years into the future."
"No, it's not possible," Jubila gasped.
Arvael frowned, "May the Emperor forgive me a small Heresy, but I doubt the Imperium of Man will still be standing by this point. Half-a-billion years, I wonder if mankind even still exists and in what form. Have we evolved into a superior race of psykers, as some posit, Homo Sapien Novus, or have we simply gone extinct? What of the Emperor, has he transcended his deathless state... I suppose you're going to find out Jubila."
"This is a poor jest!" Jubila spat, "I can escape your trap, I can escape anything!"
Arvael continued, "I'm sure you have a dozen ways up your sleeve to break out of this pit. But, if by some miracle mankind survives, you will be as the primordial beasts that first crawled out of Terra's oceans. A relic out of its time. I'm curious what they will do with you... but the important part, as far as I'm concerned, is the Storm Heralds will never have to deal with you again. Goodbye Jubila, and know the galaxy long since forgot you ever existed."
Jubila's jaw dropped as the haggard Chief Librarian's message winked out, leaving him trapped alone in a future he could not possibly recognise. Jubila was a traveller adrift in time, cast onto strange and unfamiliar shores. Whatever dwelt among the stars in this age would not recognise him either, not remembering his glory and right to lead. No armies would march to his banner, no jubilant masses would chant his name. The Chaos Gods may not even exist anymore, and if they did it was certain they would have mutated into forms unknown and exotic. Jubila was the last of his kind, last worshipper of Slaanesh, a lonely fossil of an age long dead, pitiable and easily forgotten.
Aghast Jubila threw himself at the armourglass window, beating his fists on it as he screamed, "No you can't do this to me. I am Jubila, I am the greatest swordsman who ever lived! I can't be forgotten! Nooooooo!"
But in the Grimdarkness of the far, far future there was only silence.
The Adventure continues when the Storm Heralds return in Castrum Perilous
