A/N: Cap 21 review responses are in my forums as normal. Thanks for reading and reviewing.
Chapter Twenty Two: Quis Ego Sum
Malcador was a god as well.
Lyta was aware of voices whispering urgently above her head, but her mind wrestled with dogged persistence on the vision of a slightly younger, more physically powerful being named Al-Khidr, whom the Telosians named Lord Kratos, father of Telos.
Al-Khidr. Malcador.
The woman standing at the emperor's side–Lyta recognized her from the visions of Taylor and Stein's flight from Terra. The same name. Erda. In one, she lived as an exile in the desert, but thousands of years before she stood at the Emperor's side.
The Emperor of Mankind was named Neothe. His face seemed to linger in her mind with far greater detail than the others, as if somehow he were more real, and the memory of him sank deeper into her consciousness.
The whispers became louder; more desperate.
"Report," she said before even opening her eyes.
"Demon spoor," Artigan said tensely. "On approach from the G27A-Five Arterial feed."
Her eyes hurt as she opened them. "How long was I out?"
"Over seven minutes," Maerya said. "Longer than even at the Inquisitorial library."
She'd fallen; Artigan gave her a hand up, grunting with the effort of lifting both her and her power armor. Once on her feet, she began desperately looking around the alcove that held the Telosian bible. She was startled to find other religious treatises, banned books side-by-side with sanctioned texts. The Songs of Mythrus, the Telosia Upinashad, the Gospels of Saint Sabbat for some odd reason, and on a shelf opposite…an ancient, stasis-bound copy of The Saint Everlasting, in ancient High Gothic. Lord Moro knew all along.
"We need to move," Artigan noted urgently. "What are you looking for?"
"There was a golden acorn with this book in Malcador's Vault," she said. She turned to Maerya. "This is the same book, isn't it?"
The psyker shrugged. "I don't know."
"Do you know where the acorn is? One went out into the stars. One stayed here. Five thousand years before the Imperium. They were important enough that the Sigillite recovered the one here and kept it in stasis next to this book."
Maerya hugged herself. "I never saw it. But if it was important, perhaps Lord Moro kept it on his person?"
"Lord, we need to move," Artigan said. "When I said demon spoor, I meant a fekking huge demon."
"What?" That pierced the heavy blanket over her mind when she saw the naked fear in the man's eyes. "Show me!"
He led her back out into Lord Moro's disheveled office toward a wall picter screen. She followed and stared, her stomach clenching. She noticed only then that Artigan's nose was bleeding just from the sight of the demon through a picter.
Demons could sometimes manifest with enough empyric energy. But this? She'd read of them, and her first assignment was to stamp out a demon incursion here in Botan Hive, but she was Hereticus, not Malleus. She wasn't a demon hunter.
Even a demon hunter would quail at the monster which marched toward them. Dozens of twisted, once-normal mortals rushed before the winged, retrograde-legged monster with red skin. Its massive head bristled with horns and long chains of skulls. Lesser demons pranced about its cloven hooves. The sword it carried was taller than a space marine, and burned with a dirty, orange-black flame.
"May we run away now?" Maerya asked in a trembling voice.
"Yes," Lyta said. "Yes, I think that's a good idea." She turned to see the assassin, her amputated and good arm crossed over her chest, staring from the door of the hidden cells. "Who let her out?"
"Should we have left her?" Maerya asked. "Lord Moro planned to recruit her, I think. We've been without a pariah for almost two years now."
Null. A descendent of Taylor Hebert. Or a clone of one, anyway. Knowing she had little time, but unable to just ignore a potential threat, Lyta pulled her laspistol and walked toward the assassin. "I am a Rothid of the Botan Hive Rothids. I watched my brother's soul consumed by a Chaos as he murdered my father. You say we are corrupt? You served the archenemy. Tell me now, and swear it upon what little soul you may have, and the Golden Throne! Will you serve me, or shall I shoot you where you stand?"
The woman was so young–like Lyta herself when the Ordos pulled her from the Progenium. She opened her mouth, closed it, and then opened it again as her eyes stung. "I am the Emperor's faithful servant," she declared. "In His name, I will serve."
Truth.
"Then come on!"
"Does that mean we can run now?"
"Yes, Maerya. We run!"
They ran.
"Artigan, how much time and how many with the demon?"
"Not long, and does it matter? It's a greater demon!" the man said. "We're likely damned just for seeing the thing! We're not getting help, either. I intercepted hive vox channels. The city guard and the Arbites are engaged in open battles in every artery in every spire. They're struggling just to secure high value targets. We have ten minutes to evacuate, if even that."
Lyta ran harder–it took them almost forty minutes to make it up the stairs. Going down was in a way more hazardous, but also far faster. They took the stairs three at a time, almost jumping down. Twice cultists lingering in the stairwell attacked, but were easily gunned down in their frantic state.
They didn't have time or breath to talk, much less time for Lyta to process the full implications of what she saw in her vision. There was only the next step; the oppressive heat and danger that hung in the air. When they reached the hangar, the side gunner was already firing into the artery across the chasm that separated Lord Moro's spire from the main walls of the Gimel spire.
Not thousands. Tens of thousands, as if entire sectors of the Hive had fallen to corruption. And behind them, standing easily ten meters high, with thickly veined wings that seemed to make the air itself bleed, a greater demon.
One of the stormtroopers bent over, removed their helmet and was horribly sick. Lyta saw their nose and one eye bleeding. Even from half a kilometer, just looking at the utter horror and power of the demon was enough to make troopers ill. It was, she knew, why Inquisitors purged populations exposed to such atrocities. Just seeing the demon had damned their souls.
The vanguard of the infestation had already reached the compromised security gates, screaming "Blood! Blood!" as they charged. Many already bore traces of warp corruption on their bodies, with horns and talons like beasts. All were lost to the madness of Chaos. This, Lyta knew, had to be the work of the Chaos sorcerer.
Artigan sprinted ahead and dove into the transport to prepare it for flight. She followed behind and took the co-pilot's seat as the rest piled in. The troopers were pulling the one-handed Eta in as the first of the tainted spilled into the hangar. The air crackled over their heads with the hatred of warp energy. There were psykers among them, somehow. Raw, newly opened to the Warp and all the more dangerous for it.
Maerya surprised Lyta when she stepped beside the side door gunner, whose shots were somehow being deflected by Warp energy, and screamed. Her scream made Lyta's ears bleed. It also ruptured whatever warp shield the raw pysker in the crowd managed to create, which allowed the repeater las rounds to burn the first few rows and buy the transport precious time to escape.
The massive demon charged through the Chaos vanguard, moving faster than any mortal or Astartes could move. Lyta saw in an instant, coldly confirmed by her own power, that they would not escape.
The chain of skulls in the demon's hand erupted in blood-red flame. The impossible creation roared, reared back one arm, and lashed out with the weapon.
The starboard RX-92-00 Combination Rocket/Afterburning Turbofan set in the wing was roaring with their desperation, but at the merest touch of the flaming chain of skulls, the engine exploded. Lyta had a moment to bite back a startled scream as the force of it sent the transport skidding across the hangar bay.
As the nose of the ship came around, Artigan did the only thing he could. He opened up with the dorsal-mounted battle cannon. The high explosive round impacted the center of the hangar floor, right in the center of the swarming demons and warp-corrupted. A weapon designed to destroy tanks had little problem splattering empyric flesh into gibbets of gore.
The greater demon continued forward, swirling his flaming chain in one hand. He'd pulled the massive sword from the ether with his other.
Artigan opened up with the twin-linked lascannons. The massive weapons had a relatively low rate of fire, but not even a greater demon could just ignore them. The creature took both cannon bolts in the chest, and both burned into his red, Warp-spawned flesh.
He couldn't ignore the shots, but they did not kill him. He roared, enraged. Lyta pulled her helm on, while behind her one of their newly recruited stormtroopers simply dropped dead, blood spilling from under their visor, from the demon's roar alone. Maerya cried out and covered her head in alarm.
Artigan fired again, but the demon was too close. The skull-chain slammed into the side of the dorsal weapons mount, ripping it free from the body of the transport.
Telos, if I'm meant to find you, I could use some help.
The prayer shocked Lyta, for it flew in the face of her conditioning. And yet she meant it.
Help did not come from the Saint Everlasting, though. It came from an impossibly tall figure in black power armor and a hooded cloak. The armored warrior slammed into the retrograde left leg of the demon and somehow lifted the entire creature from the floor, flipping it. Wings as large as their transport flapped as it fell with a thud.
The warrior spun like a dancer and slammed a crozius easily as large as Lyta herself right into the demon's leg joint, shattering the damned flesh. Somehow the warrior spun away from the demon's sword-strike, and moved in closer to strike at the clawed hand itself.
"Get the mounted weapon off its pintle and fire!" Lyta screamed to make herself heard. Those handful of troopers not overcome by the demonic entity obeyed, though it took three of them to get the heavy weapon into position.
Artigan, accepting their machine would never fly, gave up the pilot's seat and made his way out with his hellgun repeater las in hand. After the crash and the exposure to the demonic, Lyta was sickened to see they only had six troopers left.
They did their duty, but didn't aim for the greater demon–they aimed for the lesser that were trying to harry the giant warrior.
It was hard to concentrate, though, with the titanic battle being fought before their eyes. The greater demon was not a creature of flesh and blood. It was a being of pure warp energy given form, a violation of the natural order. It could not truly be killed because it did not truly live. Only it's borrowed, physical flesh could be destroyed.
The impossibly tall warrior did his best to do that very thing. It was stunning to watch him move, far too fast for a being that was so very large. The greater demon used its massive bat-like wings to maintain balance despite its shattered leg, and its massive horned head swirled about in its rage. Chain and sword alike scourged the floor where the warrior's feet once stood.
A second very large warrior charged in behind the demon–an Ogryn in heavy carapace armor with the sign of the Ordo printed crudely on his chest. He carried a chainsword as large as Lyta was tall, and slammed the weapon down right into the base of the demon's tail.
The demon's roar made the air shimmer with flame. It spun around with its flaming sword and so thoroughly obliterated the ogryn that nothing remained except the chainsword and splattered gore.
The tall warrior in black armor rolled under the demon's angry swipe and swept the weapon up easily. He emerged from his roll in a spin that cut the teeth of the chainsword deep into the demon's other leg.
From behind the thoroughly disassembled ogryn came more Ordos–many more than Lyta had with her.
"Fire on the abomination!" She cried to whomever might listen.
The other Ordos forces did the same, while the giant warrior used chainsword and power crozius to beat and cut the demon into pieces. It did not die slowly or easily–its chain lashed out at the newly arrived Ordos forces and instantly killed three troopers. But with its legs crushed and its tail cut off, withering under a constant barrage of las and bolter fire, it reared up just sufficient to allow the giant warrior to slam the roaring teeth of the chainsword into the monster's neck. Nor did he relent with the pressure of it, pushing with impossible strength even as the demon dropped his weapons and reached for his tormentor.
The head came away in a shower of burning blood and flame, which quickly began to sublimate back to the Warp from whence it came.
Beyond the hangar, four Valkyrie-type gunships hove into view. They did not carry the seal of the Inquisition or Guard, but rather the clenched fist of the Adeptus Arbites. One by one, they pushed their way into the battle-damaged hangar.
The giant in black armor came walking directly toward them, Crozius in hand, though he had left the destroyed chainsword fall by the smoking demon corpse.
A much smaller man joined him, this one bearing a refractor field and the rosette of the Inquisition. "We are seeking Lord Inquisitor Moro," the Inquisitor declared.
Lyta stepped forward. "He's missing, Lord. We were just about to begin our own search for him. May I ask who seeks him?"
"You must be Rothid, then." The new inquisitor was not nearly as old as Moro, but seemed far from young, either. "I am Hovash Phaelias. My companion is Lord Caligus. I have been investigating the infiltration of a xenos onto Terra, and in the process discovered a traitor marine might have come as well."
"Aye," Artigan muttered. "That one come in here killing Lord Moro's staff and tearing the place apart. You just missed him by a day, at most."
"It was a Thousand Sons sorcerer," Lyta reported dutifully. "Lord Moro wasn't here when he attacked. This…this demon was different than those the sorcerer attacked with. I don't understand why, though."
"Different masters," Caligus said. He had a very deep voice. "More will come. The entire spire has been compromised."
Phaelias nodded. "Interrogator, you and your people must come with me. We have established ourselves at the Arbites fortress in the Dalet spire."
Lyta wanted to protest, but without their own transport she didn't know what else to do. "Very well, Lord. Lead on."
They found seats in the cramped interiors of the converted Arbites valkyries and quickly lifted off. Phaelias and the giant motioned for her to join them, while the rest of her people were spread through the other gunships. In moments, they were flying through the chaos of the burning skies.
"This is Extremis diabolis," she said. "We saw Landia Hive destroyed for the same, while returning from the Fortress. Why has this hive not been fired upon as well?"
"There would be no hives left," Phaelias declared darkly. "This…this abomination is across the whole face of Terra. All we can do now is hunt down and kill the source of the infiltrations."
Beyond the small port window of the ship, Lyta's home burned. The Aleph Spire looked as if it were on the verge of collapse. One of the main fusion power plants had to have blown out, leaving a vast gap in the side of the kilometers-high structure. The crystal-flex crown that scraped the edge of orbit swayed horribly, held in place solely by gravitics. She couldn't imagine the number of dead or dying. If the spire collapsed, hundreds of millions would die, but there was nowhere to evacuate the survivors, if any of them were left that had not been corrupted.
The Bet Spire fared little better, tilting precariously on its foundations. These were multi-kilometer high structures, and the Bet Spire especially served as a void dock. If they collapsed, they would devastate the surrounding districts as thoroughly as any macrocannon barrage.
They reached the Dalet air artery after several minutes of hard, buffeted flying. She'd slept through her first passage into the city, in what felt like a lifetime ago. Now they charged into a dedicated, enclosed arterial passage for air and void craft. Nearly a quarter of a kilometer wide, they should have had free access.
Instead, they found a tunnel filled with crashed vehicles of almost every description. Food haulers had slammed into the circular walls, tearing out massive gouges from the manufactories, distribution centers and administratum hubs that lined the passage. The hundreds of docking stages for the various vehicles were torn from their metal roots or burned.
"We're taking fire," Phaelias noted calmly. "We will ignore it for now."
Not every hive city was the same, and not every spire of Botan Hive was either. The oldest spire, Gimel, was a solid, dense construction with no open spaces beyond a few hundred square meters in each sector for markets and mustering.
Dalet Spire, on the other hand, had a hollow core that ran up the inside of the ancient structure. She'd read as a child that originally the spire had multiple openings designed for airflow and sunlight to enter. Over the centuries those open spaces were filled in, and the floors that spanned the structure's heart were demolished or allowed to collapse, until the spire formed a two-kilometer-high hollow cone. It was within this open area that the Arbites built their fortress.
It took several tense minutes, flying at high speed and dodging obstacles that should not have been where they were, to reach the open area. Finally, though, the Valkyries pierced the shell of the spire and emerged into the bleeding, open heart of Dalet Spire.
"Throne preserve us!" the pilot muttered.
Every arterial passage was clogged with burning vehicles and angry mobs fighting. Not hundreds or thousands, but unbroken carpets of millions of desperate, angry or warp-tainted people swarmed through the Hive. What they were after, Lyta could only imagine.
Despite the chaos, the Arbites fortress remained intact.
Through the port window, she saw that somehow the fortress had indeed managed to maintain a secure perimeter. Some of that perimeter was made up of crashed and burning gunships, and some of literal piles of bodies high enough to form their own barrier, but the walls remained whole against a vicious tide of Warp-touched humanity that seemed intent on destroying it.
The primary fortress hangar hung underneath the partially suspensor-held structure, providing a secure access point that the ground arteries could not reach. The fortress had sufficient hangar space for a dozen valkyries, though the four they rode in were the only ones within it.
Lyta was not surprised at all when a small envoy of Arbiters rushed out at a jog in full flak armor with lasguns in hand to meet the returning ships. She quickly climbed out of her guncutter to meet them.
"The Kid Interrogator," Arbiter Kurzmann declared in greeting. "Inquisitor, did you find what you needed?"
"Not everything, but this is a start," Phaelias said. "Lord Moro was not at his hab citadel. We need to speak to the savant."
"Very well," Kurzmann said. "This way, Lords."
The fortress was crowded with thousands of hive adepts who fled to the only hope of protection they could find within easy reach. Most were adepta of the hive, or the vast bureaucracy of the world, since only those who worked for the throne or one of the myriad adepta had any hope of steady compensation, food and housing.
They huddled in the halls with their families, shivering in terror or asking about food or water. Kurzmann ignored them as he led Lyta and her retinue through to a secured back office. They had neither food nor water to share, even if he were inclined to do so. Through two more secured doors, they reached an archival dataloom.
It was the creature within, though, that shocked Lyta. Nor was she alone in her surprise.
"Thenes, you dirty old bastard, what are you doing here?" Artigan sounded as shocked as Lyta felt.
Eratos Thenes dominated the center of the dataloom chamber. Wires and jacks connected the metallic plate that served as his skull to the Arbiter's many cogitators and data matrices. His pasty human face looked horrific atop his large, misshapen body. A third and fourth limb protruded from his spine, almost as if he were an arachnid or a Martian tech priest.
He turned and grinned at Lyta. "You have lost weight, Interrogator. Ah…and an implant. Praise Him and his saints for restoring you."
Kurzmann frowned, the only expression visible with his visor, and leaned forward to stair. "Throne, the old spider is telling the truth! What happened to your augment, Interrogator?"
"What's this?" Phaelias demanded.
"Lord, I'll explain, but if it pleases you…" She moved closer to Thenes. "How are you here?"
"My lord's orders," Eratos said. "The archive sector had an escape chute designed just for me, so that I could lend my services to the Hive should the hab fall. It is by my talents that I have managed to keep most of the riots away from the Fortress."
"Bastard's not lying," Kurzmann said. "He took control of the hive's environmental controls for the surrounding precincts. If not for him, we'd have been overwhelmed hours ago."
"Do you know where Lord Moro is?"
"Where he is? Of course not. No, there are no active systems where he is. But which direction he went? That much I know."
"You will share it with us immediately, savant," Phaelias said.
"Done." As bad as Eratos Thenes looked by hololith, in person his leering face was far worse. "Tell me, Interrogator. What did you see when you read Lord Moro's special book? Seven hundred and twenty-three second fugue state. Synaptic activity indicative of intense experiential episode. Your first fugue state in the 183rd level, Black Sector 5 of Dalet spire lasted only ninety-two seconds. Sadly, I do not have records of how long your fugue state lasted in the Inquisitorial Fortress. What did you see?"
Lyta felt eyes on her–judging eyes.
Eta Bequin, standing by Artigan, sputtered. "What is this creature?"
"I am Eratos Thenes, Savant of Lord Abrin Moro. You are Eta Bequin, a clone of the psychic null named Alizabeth Bequin, who died 386.M41 under the employ of the heretic Lord Inquisitor Eisenhorn. Forty-nine kilograms after the loss of your arm. Pleasingly symmetrical and…"
"Enough, Thenes," Lyta snapped. "Do you know where the sorcerer is who attacked the hab?"
"Searching for Lord Moro, of course. Possibly for you as well. I have lured him to the Aleph Spire, but his warp magic guides his steps back. Everyone dies where he passes."
"Noticed that," Artigan muttered.
The leering smile faltered. "All things end, Amelyta Rothid. It is the nature of things to end. This nightmare in which we find ourselves cannot continue indefinitely. Eventually, we must wake up, or perish."
His words struck a deep chord within her, as if she'd heard those words before.
"I demand an explanation of what is happening," Phaelias said. "Savant, you told me you could assist us. Do so. Why would a chaos sorcerer attack Lord Moro's citadel?"
Thenes motioned toward Lyta. "Because this one is destined to save the Imperium of Man, or possibly condemn it. And the Great Enemy will stop at nothing to destroy her before it happens. What is a Black Crusade, or the violation of holy Terra itself, in order to keep Chaos in power? She is a holy saint, after all."
"I am no saint," Lyta said.
"Perhaps not yet," Themes said. "Nor will you ever be, if the Enemy reaches you."
~~Revelation~~
~~Revelation~~
The inquisitor continued to speak to Thenes, seeking specific tactical information. Lyta found herself drifting away, desperate for a few moments alone to try to come to terms with all she'd learned. She had only moments to do so, however. In the relatively sparse corner of the dataloom, she found her way blocked by a wall of black ceremite. She had to step back, and remove her helm to just see the head of the being who stood before her. "Lord?"
Caligus knelt down, but even kneeling was as tall as she. She watched, tensely, as he removed his helm. She expected the sloped forehead of an augmented ogryn, just due to the man's impossible size.
What she saw took her breath away–a broad, large head of perfectly formed features. Short, pale white hair was once blond like her own. Green eyes, a shade darker than her own, regarded her from an impossibly handsome and yet ancient face. His skin looked almost like plastek, he was so very old.
Custodes. Her power confirmed her suspicion and she felt her stomach drop at the realization that she stood in the company of one of the Emperor's companions.
"On Luna, your life was saved by another. A winged apparition."
"I…do not know that, Lord. I haven't…"
"I have. A winged apparition which spoke to me weeks after, on a security picter that had no audio. She said hope could be found in the trees. What does she mean?"
Behind the giant, Phaelias was now leaning over a hololithic table, tracing various points of the spire. No one seemed to be paying attention to them.
"Lord…"
"I am here by the Emperor's expressed will. I seek hope at His will. You will answer, Interrogator. What did the winged apparition mean?"
"Saint Taylor Hebert," Lyta said, whispering the words. "The Saint Everlasting. Malcador's daughter. She is the hope lost in the trees."
"You refer to the ancient religion of Telosianism."
"Yes. But how would you…"
"We stand outside the lex. What does it mean for the pagan saint to be in the trees?"
She considered how to answer. It was no mere Inquisitor or Adepta she spoke to, but one of the Emperor's own companions–the first she had ever seen or spoken to. More importantly, her power told her that he spoke nothing but truth.
"Forty thousand years ago, the daughter of Malcador the Sigillite was born a god. She shed her holy blood and from that blood grew two trees. The trees were eternal and everlasting. They remained untouched through forty thousand years of history, until the Sigillite saw fit to bury them under rockcrete to protect them during the Heresy. Taylor Hebert is a perpetual shard of that same daughter, Lord. And she is trapped, somehow, in those trees."
Caligus blinked, and then stood to his full height. "You know this for sure?"
"As sure as I can be of anything. Lord Moro knows more–he may have the keys to find her. That's why we seek him."
He slipped his helm back on. "Then I know my next steps as well. We shall find your missing Inquisitor."