A/N: The second of two posts today. With this chapter, we get to see how Book 1 of Revelation will unfold.
Chapter Six: Medio Aquarum
Below the lifter, the abyssal plains stretched out from the edge of the Merican continental shelf. Stein could see the glint of light from the nearest orbital plate shining off the handful of salt lakes that represented the very last vestiges of a once mighty ocean. The plates filled the sky, despite the ongoing efforts to decommission them.
"My course is set for an uncharted sea," Stein whispered to himself.
"Major?"
Stein pulled his gaze from the dead ocean and nodded to his lieutenant. "Just something I read once. We're ten minutes out. Prep the men. Intel doesn't anticipate organized resistance."
"It's a hidden cult, I hope to hell we don't," Baklan said. "Fanatics make crappy soldiers."
Stein nodded, because that's what Baklan and the rest expected. He knew better. His father fought against Cardinal Tang and his Yndonesic fanatics, who managed to hold out against the Emperor and his angels far longer than most. For that matter, the Emperor's angels were also fanatics, and he'd not want to face them in battle either.
Through the canopy of the lifter, he saw the continental shelf rising majestically up from the plains. The lifter flew directly over the Kelv Mountain range. Some of the peaks rose as high as four thousand meters from the plains below. And even then, they were once underwater.. Beyond the range, he could see the cliffs of the continental shelf.
It was the nature of humanity, Stein once read, to spread like the mycelium of a fungus. With the gradual retreat of the ocean, humanity followed the coasts. The massive hab units and palaces that crowned the edge of the continental shelf must have once possessed the most awe-inspiring views available on the planet. Even now, those elites could look across the vast Lantic abyssal plains and still see a glimpse of open water–something few others on Terra could still claim.
The Bostan Arcologies rose just beyond the edge of the shelf in shimmering splendor. Stein knew the outline of Bostan's spires as well as the back of his hands. He could trace the water recyclers and void shield generators as easily as he could the scar tissue on his left forearm. Like the mountains they just flew over, each Arcology extended beyond just a central spine, spreading for dozens and even hundreds of kilometers north along the continental shelf. The arcology as a whole was made of six separate central spines, each housing ten million souls or more. The lifter changed course to the northernmost spine.
"Seal up," Stein ordered.
Baklan echoed the order, and the two NCOs turned it into a shouted command. Beyond the canopy, the sun began to set far to the west.
He pulled on his full-face helm, hiding his features behind an opaque visor and rebreather tubes. The HUD before his eyes reported the environmental spine pack was fully charged, and with the sealing of his helm the suit attained controlled internal pressure.
He quickly assessed his black, unmarked carapace plates and checked all seals against any thermal bleed. Once done, he scanned his men, going through and looking for any thermal bleeds on their part.
Once upon a time, generations before he was born, the Merican Special Forces would have been defending these arcologies against the Emperor. But those days ended generations ago, and as he did with all things, the Emperor took what he conquered and reshaped it to his purposes. Now they were no longer Merican, they were simply called Chosen.
They flew past the fourth spine. The pilot dropped quickly, flying along the tips of the densely populated structures as they approached the parklands that surrounded the arcology. Outside of the Imperial Palace, there were few regions of the world that could claim open, living habitats any more. This parkland was a precious miracle, but one that flew in the face of the Imperial Truth.
The lifter came down on actual, living grass. With the threat of the traitor Warmaster Horus and his forces looming ever closer to Terra, martial law ensured there was none there to contest their landing. Stein led the way out, and the hundred men of his company followed. To the east, the glittering lights of the Abyssal Plain settlements twinkled like a field of stars far below, while overhead the true stars were obscured by the orbital plates and the fleet that stood ready to defend the world against the Arch Traitor.
On the maps, the field was labeled as a park memorializing those men and women who gave their lives to the defense of the old Merican Federation. Supposedly there was a list of names somewhere, Stein's great grandfather among them.
The technology that hid their target did so with such power that he could not see even a hint of it through any medium available through his helm. No thermal dissonance, nor air displacement. It was as if there was nothing but air itself. And yet, their orders assured them that an ancient church was hidden in plain sight on this location.
An alert-sigil flashed across the back of his helm. Stein left his own squad and joined Baklan as the company searched for any sign of the hidden infidels. Baklan himself knelt down in the grass and wordlessly motioned toward something he found. His visor was up, exposing his face despite standing orders.
"Naked eye only, sir," he whispered.
"How did you know?"
"Don't know. Stray thought in the back of my head."
Stein flipped his visor open. The air tickled his nose with sharp, organic scents he'd almost forgotten. He sneezed despite himself. And there, in the grass, he saw a partially buried stone. He could not make out the shape carved into it, but he knew what it was from his briefing.
"Good work. Stand ready."
A hundred operatives knelt down, weapons pointed in all directions for the simple reason that they had no orientation on their target. With a final glance at Baklan, Stein placed his gauntlet over the stone and pressed down.
The loud clunk sounded like an ancient electrical breaker going off. There was no shimmer or transition. The pre-Long Night technology simply clicked off, and suddenly in their midst they found the night obscured by two massive trees that seemed to cover the entirety of the park. The ground around them began to glow with a soft, golden radiance that shimmered from the boughs of the thirty-meter-high trees.
A shocking boom overcame his instinctive awe. Stein flipped his faceplate back in place just in time to see the thermal report of one of his men being blasted into gibbets of flesh. Thermal outlines of a dozen people could be seen emerging from an underground bunker of some kind. They did not carry las weapons, but their heavy-caliber projectiles were powerful enough to get through the most advanced carapace armor available.
Two other men fell, but even before Stein reached the battle, it was over. Twelve mortal attackers, no matter how dedicated, had little hope against a hundred of the Sigillite's finest Chosen. The last fell to efficient bursts of lasfire before Stein even reached them.
He continued toward the opening to the underground bunker that he could now see clearly. At his signal, Daine threw a sensor orb into the opening. Almost immediately the scan appeared in the HUD of Stein's faceplate. Once the initial opening was determined clear, he led the way in with Baklan a step behind. He secured what looked like an anteroom–the walls were made of shaped stone and looked ancient. The chamber was large enough to hold a pair of fireteams. Ahead, down a steep set of stairs, the sensor orb went off line.
Baklan moved forward and threw a pair of stun grenades. He led the second charge with his team once the grenades popped, with Stein and his team behind him this time. They came across a pair of bodies immediately, overcome by the gas in the grenades. Both were women wearing white robes with gold trim. One looked older than Stein's mother, the other younger than his niece.
Johans secured the prisoners as they continued into the labyrinth. Daine tossed three more sensor orbs into the halls, and on the inside of Stein's faceplate he began to make out the structure of what was once likely the basement to a very large building. Possibly the ancient pre-Unity temple that one stood here before the Imperial Truth was made manifest.
There were only a handful of pagans left. The sensor orbs could not detect any more safe rooms or defense bastions to speak of. It appeared the pagans depended on their ancient stealth tech to keep them safe.
Which begged the question of how Command knew about it?
They arrived at what appeared to be a sanctum. An altar stood at the back of the room, over which hung a cruciform shape of a woman in beaten gold with out-stretched wings. Several of the fanatics knelt around it, facing outward at Stein's men. Some wore robes, others wore civilian garb. They were not armed, and almost every one of them looked stricken with fear.
Around the walls of the spacious chamber, Stein could see crates of supplies and reliquaries from ages past. This wasn't a cult–it was one of the ancient faiths that clung on through the Long Night; against even the Imperial Truth. He switched to audible speakers. "On the ground! Hands up!"
His men surged past him. He expected the fanatics to die for their faith, but surprisingly those who remained complied. Most were women or girls, but there were a few older men and boys among them.
They began the work of securing wrists and cataloging IDs. Even centuries after the Unification, the Imperium struggled with census records. Did these people actually even exist officially?
"Major, he's here." Johans sounded panicked, which was unusual for the ten-year veteran.
"Who?"
"The Sigillite."
Stein's mind raced to try and understand how, or even why, the Regent of Terra himself would be here. He had little time to come to terms with it, however. A shadowy, cowled figure entered the room, hunched and withered and clutching a staff.
Every soldier in the room snapped to stiff attention, Stein included. His heart beat so loudly he just knew it was audible beyond his sealed environmental armor. He had never met the Sigillite before, but now that he had he felt deeply, profoundly discomforted. Despite the man's withered appearance, something about his presence triggered an instinct to fight or flee.
The ancient figure radiated power, but not physical. Nor even metaphorical. No, the air itself seemed almost to shy away from him as he entered the sanctum. He reached up a hand made bony by impossible age and removed the deep hood that hid his features. Piercing eyes looked dark in the dim lights of the sanctum.
The second most powerful figure in the Imperium of Man moved ponderously over the floor until he stood facing the dozen cowed worshippers of the pagan goddess that hung over their heads.
No, Stein corrected himself. Not all were cowed. One of those in a robe stood. She was a grown woman, close to thirty. Black, curled hair. Oddly, the set of her eyes were not so different from that of the Sigillite, especially when facing each other.
"You promised," she snarled. In that instant, Stein felt he was witnessing the end of a very old conversation.
Rather than answer, the Sigillite turned his attention to Stein. "Major, secure the others and then give us the room, if you please."
"Sir." Stein didn't need to pass on the orders–Baklan and the men heard and obeyed. Everyone obeyed the Sigillite.
He was the last out, but as he left the room he heard the woman shout angrily. "You promised! You promised that if we stayed quiet, you'd protect us!"
"Yes." The Sigillite seemed to know which of the children she referred to. "I am the reckoner, child. I am the judge. The scrivener of the Imperium. My task is the preservation of our species' very soul. You know this. I act as I must."
"No. That was my job. Your job was to preserve me. And you've done a shit job of it," came the riposte.
Stein realized that Baklan had already led the other men and the secured prisoners back to the surface. Only he himself remained to hear the unbelievable defiance against the second most powerful man in the entire Imperium.
"Perhaps," the Sigillite allowed. "So very much went wrong. And now death itself flies toward us. I am not here to destroy. I am here to preserve. It was the vow I took, millenia ago. That includes you."
"You can't destroy the trees." The woman spoke with frightening familiarity. The anger, Stein understood. She was a member of a long-outlawed cult. But the familiarity did not fit the circumstance. Again, it felt as if he were hearing the end of a very old conversation.
"Horus can. Magnus can. They could carve the earth directly out from below the roots of the trees and cast them into the sun. The phase shield you used causes an echo in the Empyrean. Too faint to be felt off-world, but when they come, as I know they will, they will feel it just as I did. As did the Emperor. As will their dark masters. I'm sorry, child. The trees will be buried under rockrete. Their golden boughs will never see the light of Sol again, not until hope is restored to humanity. I have foreseen it."
She snorted. "Now you believe in prophecy?"
"I would not be here, now, if I did not." A long silence held before the Sigillite spoke again. "They will come after you, child." His voice deepened with anger at the thought. "No matter what we do, the enemies of humanity will seek to use you to their dark ends. I cannot allow it."
"You've ruined everything," the woman finally said.
"And I shall pay the price for my failures," the Sigillite said. "As will everyone else. Major Stein?"
Stein returned to the chamber. He knew that the Sigillite was aware of his presence the entire time. "Lord," he said.
"Take this woman into custody. She and those other prisoners are to be taken to my bastion within the Imperial Palace for questioning. Treat them with respect, if you please. There will be no terminations or interrogations."
"Yes, Lord."
The woman did not resist as Stein took her arm. She was slightly taller than average, and her curled hair looked black against the white of her ceremonial robe. Tears stained her cheeks, but she wore an expression of utter, blinding rage.
Behind them, Malcador the Sigillite leaned on his staff and stared intently at the cruciform figure of the winged goddess.
~~Revelation~~
~~Revelation~~
On the other side of the world from Merican, a day and an intense after-action report later, the Sigillite entered the anteroom of his fortress within the Imperial Palace before Stein was even aware of it. He'd been lost in memories when suddenly he became aware of a pressure, as if he had moved onto a high-G world where the atmosphere itself pushed down upon him. He turned and saw the Regent of Terra shuffle by.
Malcador moved with the deliberation of extreme age and fragility. And yet, the air became denser just from his presence. Stein had no doubt the man before him could destroy him with little more than a thought.
To his surprise, the Sigillite pushed his hood back to reveal an impossibly aged face, with a strong, sharp nose made bony and long as the rest of his seemed to recess. His cheeks protruded as if he had not had a full meal in ages, while a gray beard jutted from his bony chin. But what surprised him was the man's bald head, dotted with liverspots and old scars. The skin was pale, perhaps more so than normal even for one his age. Although–what was normal about his age?
Eyes the shade of darkened jade held Stein in place for a long moment. "Is the prisoner secured?"
"As you ordered, Lord," Stein responded. He had no doubt Malcador already knew the answer.
"Good." The ancient Regent moved in a hobbled fashion, as if from old injuries, and sat himself at a table in the otherwise sparsely furnished anteroom. "Stein. Stein. You are from the Merican Steins of the Bostan Arcology yourself, correct?"
"Yes, Lord."
"I knew your great grandfather, Harlus Abinold Stein. The last Lord General of the Merican Federation. Largely despised by the arcologies under his watch, and yet his decision to surrender to the Emperor's forces after the Battle of the Vegan Planum saved millions of lives and ensured Merican entered the Imperium in a place of honor, rather than as a conquered land."
What was Stein supposed to say to that? His ancestor was nothing more than another fallen warlord, conquered by the Emperor during Unity.
"Join me, Major. Shall you take wine?"
"I…thank you, Lord. No." He came and sat at the table across from the second most powerful man in the Imperium. The Regent did not pour himself a drink, but rather studied Stein carefully.
"The war for the future of humanity has started," the Regent said gravely. His voice dropped in tone. "Nor did it begin well for us. The Arch-traitor is coming soon, and we will face many travails before the question of our future is decided. Tell me, Major. If Horus himself stood before you, would you surrender as your great-grandfather did to the Emperor?"
The question startled Stein, and he had to struggle for an answer. "Lord…I don't claim to have all the information. But from what I've studied, the Emperor fought to Unify Terra. To try and drag us from the darkness of the Age of Strife. And he succeeded–life on this world is so much better for so many more people than it was before he came. What does the Arch Traitor fight for? Other than to tear down and destroy? How would my surrender save lives? Better to die fighting for the Imperial Truth. For the Emperor."
Those dark jade eyes studied him intently, until nodding abruptly. "Yes. You will do." Clutching his staff, the Sigillite pulled himself to his feet. "Follow."
"Where, Lord?"
"There is something I would have you see before you begin the duties I must assign you."
~~Revelation~~
~~Revelation~~
What followed was a rare, privileged glimpse into the silent empire that operated in parallel with the public. The halls Malcador led him through seemed to cut straight through the hidden depths of the Imperial Palace. He saw every flavor of humanity there, in crimson or bright yellow robes. Hunched, pale scholastics moved side by side with golden-masked Tech-priests and soldiers not so different from Stein himself.
Malcador said nothing, and so neither did Stein. They kept going, moving through brightly lit corridors and elevator shafts older than the Imperium itself. The corridors became less well lit the deeper they went. The cool recycled air became warmer, though Stein could not have explained why.
After almost an hour of travel, they reached a deep corridor that must have been at the very root of the earth below the Imperial Palace. "Remain close," the Sigillite said in warning. "None will challenge you while you follow me. But move away, you will die. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Lord."
They stepped into a vaulted cavern, vast in a way that seemed impossible for its depth. The floor was paved and smooth, as if polished black stone, and stretched on forever in unnerving silence.
And yet for all the quiet, Stein was able to see movement. He caught a few Mechanicum adepts drifting on their way, their crimson robes catching his eyes first. But then he saw a woman–at least he guessed it to be a woman. She wore ornate power armor not so different in make than that of an Astartes cloaked in fur, oddly enough. But then nearby the woman, he saw an impossibly tall figure in brilliant golden ceremite with a tall, conical helm topped by red feathers. A Legio Custodes.
None of the occupants of the vast cavern acknowledged them as the Sigillite led Stein across the space.
"How long has this cavern been here?"
"The original caverns pre-date the human diaspora," Malcador said. "The Emperor and I have had cause to expand them over the centuries."
The cavern did not exist in solitude–Stein could see tunnels branching off further into the mountain that rose in the center of the Imperial Palace, more than a few large enough for a Titan engine to pass. The ground shook her his feet, making him wonder if there were yet still more depths that could have been explored.
They continued, but even here in these mysterious depths Stein saw what looked like ruins, or abandoned spaces. He saw vast tunnels with so much dust it formed a thick carpet over the smoothed black stone.
"You are troubled."
"This place…it feels like…"
"We planned for a brighter future than we faced," Malcador admitted, finishing Stein's thoughts. "We lost hope, one might say." They came to an iron-bound doorway large enough for two Leman Russ-style tanks to travel through, side-by-side.
The Sigillite did nothing Stein could detect, and yet one of the doors opened with a deep, grinding creak. Metal rubbed against metal until a narrow opening creaked into existence, and then expanded such that Stein could see the full two-meter thickness of the doors.
They stepped through, and with their presence floating lumens awoke and began to cast down a gentle, yellow light.
The chamber itself was among the smallest he'd seen since beginning this odd journey to the underworld. He estimated it was only a hundred meters, if that, with a ceiling low enough he could touch it with only a leap. Cases were mounted on marble pedestals, ranging in size from his fist to the whole of his body.
"Long before Unity, Stein," Malcador said. "Long before the Strife. Before even the Diaspora, when man was taking only his first, clumsy steps into the stars, the Emperor led me into this place. I shan't tell you what he showed me, because I do not wish your mind to break. But it convinced me, then and there, that we had to begin saving our own souls. Our history. That was when the order of the Sigillites was founded. I was its first adherent. I forsook all I was before to become a priest of the future."
Each case held an object. Books, weapons. Armor without hint of power, other suits as advanced as anything being fielded that day. There were stone tablets that looked ancient beyond imagining, and the most advanced devices known.
He came at last to one case set far in back of the room, and Stein felt his breath still and his heart thud in his chest, for within the case was a portrait, and set below it on a velvet red pillow, was an ornate, gold-gilded book with actual, paper pages. Oddly, a single golden acorn rested on the same pillow as the book, propped against the top. It was the portrait, though, which stunned him.
The portrait featured his newest prisoner, held in the Blackstone Prison above. However, it was the way the portrait was done that stunned him. She was painted in partial profile, her face turned to him. A halo made of gold leaf hung around the long, dark curls of her hair. She wore a white robe, in the paint made with cracked pearls to add depth and luminescence. Over her head, a golden feminine figure hung in the sky with spectacular wings held straight in a cruciform shape on a backdrop of a rising sun and setting moon, and two golden trees set on either side of her. It was just like the icon they found in the buried church.
"It is my favorite depiction of her," Malcador said fondly. "The title of the work was The Saint Everlasting. It was painted over twenty thousand years ago, when the religion of Telos touched the lives of more than seventy percent of all humanity. That book contains the gospels of her faith."
"Lord, I don't…"
"The woman you captured helped me start this project, Major. She used her influence with the Church of Telos to locate artifacts for preservation, often at great risk. She is a living saint of a goddess that our Emperor has had to erase; the leader of a church that once guided humanity into the stars, but now must be forgotten if humanity is to survive."
Malcador turned and stared intently at Stein, so much so that the major could not move. "Your prisoner is my weakness, but also the weakness and hope of all of us. She is not imprisoned as punishment, but to save us all. If Taylor Hebert falls to the forces of chaos, humanity itself shall perish.
"That is why I am charging you, Major, with her protection. You will be her warden. Her guard. Her monster, if you will. Her constant companion until the question of our future has been answered. And if there is ever risk of her falling into the hands of Chaos, then major, I am ordering you to kill her at all costs. Even should it mean your own death. She is the hope of humanity, and if she falls to the Enemy, so too does the Imperium."