Magnus the Red: Master of Prospero Read online

  THE HORUS HERESY®

  The Primarchs

  MAGNUS THE RED: MASTER OF PROSPERO

  Graham McNeill

  LEMAN RUSS: THE GREAT WOLF

  Chris Wraight

  ROBOUTE GUILLIMAN: LORD OF ULTRAMAR

  David Annandale

  More Thousand Sons from Black Library

  A THOUSAND SONS

  Graham McNeill

  PROSPERO BURNS

  Dan Abbnet

  THIEF OF REVELATIONS

  Graham McNeill (audio drama)

  AHRIMAN: UNCHANGED

  John French

  AHRIMAN: SORCERER

  John French

  AHRIMAN: EXILE

  John French

  AHRIMAN: EXODUS

  John French

  WAR OF THE FANG

  Chris Wraight

  Contents

  Cover

  Backlist

  Title Page

  A Black Library Publication

  The Horus Heresy

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  eBook license

  To Ant Reynolds; for being this book's First Reader and convincing me to traverse the Atalantic Ridge to Merica.

  A Black Library Publication

  First published in Great Britain in 2017

  This eBook edition published in 2017 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd,

  Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

  Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

  Cover illustration by Mikhail Savier.

  Magnus the Red: Master of Prospero © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2016. Magnus the Red: Master of Prospero, The Horus Heresy Primarchs, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, The Horus Heresy, The Horus Heresy Eye logo, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.

  All Rights Reserved.

  A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 13: 978 1 78496 482 5

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  See Black Library on the internet at

  blacklibrary.com

  Find out more about Games Workshop’s world of Warhammer and the Warhammer 40,000 universe at

  games-workshop.com

  The Horus Heresy

  It is a time of legend.

  Mighty heroes battle for the right to rule the galaxy. The vast armies of the Emperor of Mankind conquer the stars in a Great Crusade – the myriad alien races are to be smashed by his elite warriors and wiped from the face of history.

  The dawn of a new age of supremacy for humanity beckons. Gleaming citadels of marble and gold celebrate the many victories of the Emperor, as system after system is brought back under his control. Triumphs are raised on a million worlds to record the epic deeds of his most powerful champions.

  First and foremost amongst these are the primarchs, superhuman beings who have led the Space Marine Legions in campaign after campaign. They are unstoppable and magnificent, the pinnacle of the Emperor’s genetic experimentation, while the Space Marines themselves are the mightiest human warriors the galaxy has ever known, each capable of besting a hundred normal men or more in combat.

  Many are the tales told of these legendary beings. From the halls of the Imperial Palace on Terra to the outermost reaches of Ultima Segmentum, their deeds are known to be shaping the very future of the galaxy. But can such souls remain free of doubt and corruption forever? Or will the temptation of greater power prove too much for even the most loyal sons of the Emperor?

  The seeds of heresy have already been sown, and the start of the greatest war in the history of mankind is but a few years away...

  'Wisdom comes from remembering the past and taking responsibility for the future.'

  – Preface to the Book of Magnus

  'Give me a lever long enough, and a fulcrum upon which to place it, and I shall move the world.'

  – from The Apologues of Olympia, by the primarch Perturabo

  The Planet of the Sorcerers

  Time unknown

  Magnus did not know this place.

  Not as it was now.

  He remembered the Pyramid of Photep as a place of light, of polished glass and dazzling reflections. A place where starbeams and sunlight made sport on the earth below.

  Beautiful people had once gathered within its golden-vaulted atria, holding impassioned debates on ethics, morality and virtue. They once delighted in the knowledge that their world was founded on principles of reason, wisdom and the pursuit of higher truths.

  Now its interior was cold and lifeless, home only to muttering shadows and broken glass reflections he dared not heed. Its fellow pyramids of the Fellowships were sagging ruins of charred-black adamantium, hollowed out skeletons adrift in a dust-choked wasteland.

  Lightning danced on the horizon beyond the pyramids, their broken framework throwing stark shadows around him. Magnus took a moment to orient himself. Once he would have known exactly where to go, but times had changed.

  The frames of the pyramids had buckled in the heat of their burning, but it had been the translation from Prospero to this protean world that rendered every one of them into something hideously deformed. Their angles, once so true, were twisted unnaturally, as if to mock their perfect forms.

  He looked up into the echoing void, picturing his final battle with the Wolf King. Sadness welled within him at the memory. Two brothers, opposites in many ways, yet so alike at their fundamental levels. How different it might have been.

  The dust swirled above Magnus, forming a hazy image of that moment, and he averted his gaze, unwilling to relive his deepest shame once more That his world had been razed was a cut to the heart that would never heal, but the Pyramid of Photep's loss was the deepest wound of all.

  One of the wonders of the galaxy, it had been his sanctum sanctorum, the representation of all that was great and noble on Prospero. It had contained his greatest treasures: texts dating back to mankind's first impressions on clay; its blind, stumbling strides into science and philosophy; its great dramatic literature, and irreplaceable works of art.

  All gone, burned in a single night of unimaginable violence. The night his father unleashed the wolves of Fenris.

  They had howled and raged at the moon.

  They had feasted well.

  But they had failed.

  Magnus and his Thousand Sons had escaped, borne through the howling chaos of the Great Ocean to this world of madness. He had never seen this planet before, never known or suspected its existence, but he knew its name as well as his own.

  The Planet of the Sorcerers.

  An apposite name, for power coursed through every one of his sons that remained.

  Power that might soon destroy them all.

  Magnus picked a path through the wreckage, a numinous angel amid the ashes of his guilt. His corporeal body had been sundered across the knee of the Wolf King but this new flesh - fashione
d of warp matter - was as solid as it had been in life. But what had that transition done to his soul? What had he become?

  He did not yet know.

  A ghost? A memory given form?

  Or the purest expression of his true nature?

  Debris choked the interior of the pyramid, and he stepped over towering bookcases toppled like the mightiest trees of the forest and data-crystals crushed beneath Fenrisian boots. Fluttering pages of ashen grimoires drifted on the mournful wind, and Magnus plucked one from the air.

  He recognised it. Of course he did - there wasn't a tome on Prospero he couldn't recall.

  Indeed, it is a strange disposed time:

  But men may construe things after their fashion,

  Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.

  One of the plays penned by the famed dramaturge of Albia. Even among all the great works of architecture, mathematics and science that lay in ashes around him, this loss struck Magnus deeply. Great works of technology could always be rediscovered, but works of art were unique and would never come again.

  Magnus went down on one knee and splayed his fingers in the dust, letting the power of the Great Ocean flow through him. He drew the memory of the ancient wordsmith's art from within the halls of his memory. Glittering motes of golden light rose like fireflies from the ash. They drifted around him, spiralling in a double helix pattern and flowing into the scrap of paper.

  Like a conflagration in reverse, the page reformed. Magnus smiled with pleasure as the motes of light conjoined around the remaining page, forming others in a rush of newly wrought parchment. He closed his eye and let out a breath that was not truly breath, feeling the same joy as the play's mysterious creator must have felt as he first scratched the words into existence Magnus felt weight settle in his palm and opened his eye. The manuscript was complete, the words glistening on the page as though fresh-inked.

  'Do you plan to restore everything you lost like that?'

  'If I have to,' said Magnus.

  'It won't work.'

  'And you know this how?'

  'Because I know what you know,' said the unseen speaker, 'and you know it won't work. But you'll try anyway.'

  Magnus rose to his full height and turned, letting memory clothe him in the war-plate he had worn on Prospero's last day; burnished gold with curling horns, pteruges of boiled leather and a wild mane of crimson hair bound with a bronze circlet.

  Before him stood a black-robed figure with the unmistakable bulk of a legionary. His hands were laced before him at his waist and a golden Crusader ring glittered on the middle finger of his right hand. His features were handsomely clean-cut. and his long black hair, severely swept back over a tapered skull, gave him a hawkish aspect.

  'I have not thought of that face in an age,' said Magnus, resting a hand on the red leather cover of his eponymous book.

  'Lie to me and you only deceive yourself,' said the legionary. 'Remember, I know what you know.'

  'Very well,' said the primarch. 'Then let us say that I try not to think of him.'

  The figure circled Magnus, studying him as though they were newly reunited acquaintances. The notion was not completely absurd.

  'He remembers the first time he saw you like that,' said the legionary. 'He was almost dead and thought you a vision come to usher him into the beyond.'

  'I remember it well,' said Magnus. 'I am surprised he does.'

  The legionary opened his hands and grinned. 'Maybe I remember you remembering it, or maybe I read it in the pages of your grand grimoire. Either way, he was not himself back then. Few of you were. But you fixed them, didn't you? Just like you fixed us.'

  'I tried,' said Magnus, walking deeper into the ruins of the pyramid. 'I tried so hard to save all my sons.'

  The legionary followed him. 'I know you did,' he said, 'but your cure was worse than the disease.'

  'You think I do not know that?' snapped Magnus, following a spiralling path towards a wide shell crater filled with razored shards of glass. 'What choice did I have?'

  'You could have let them die.'

  'Never. They were my sons!'

  'But what are they now?' asked the figure; descending into the crater. 'And what will they become? Look into the Great Ocean, Magnus. Read the tides of the future and tell me if you still feel pride at their deeds in all the centuries to come.'

  'No!' cried Magnus, stumbling down into the crater, all thoughts of regret and shame pushed aside by anger. Glass cracked underfoot, ten thousand reflections staring back at him in silent accusation.

  No two were alike, each facet an aspect of his soul he dared not confront.

  'The future is not set,' said Magnus. 'Horns fell into the trap of believing that on Davin. I will not make the same mistake

  'No, you will make new ones,' said the figure, tapping a finger against his forehead. Magnus felt his gaze drawn to the legionary's golden ring. The motif worked into the metal was unclear, but he did not need to see it to know what it was or understand the guilt of what it represented.

  'You will make worse mistakes because you still believe you can fix everything,' continued the legionary. 'The all-powerful Magnus - he can save everyone, because he is cleverer than anyone else. He knows things no one else knows.'

  'That face you wear? He cannot be here,' said Magnus. 'My brother killed him on Terra.'

  'So?' asked the legionary. 'You know better than anyone that the death of the matter binding our souls to this existence means nothing. Less than nothing on a world like this.'

  'I felt him let go of his silver cord.'

  'But you were the one who cut it,' the legionary reminded him, holding up his ring so Magnus could see the eagle and crossed lightning bolts worked upon its surface. 'You were the one who sent him back to Terra as a symbol, too broken to serve at the forefront of the Great Crusade.'

  'Russ smote me far worse than I suspected,' said Magnus. 'My mind is unravelling.'

  'There's truth in that, too, but you know I am not a figment of your disintegrating mind. I come bearing a warning.'

  'A warning?' said Magnus, taking a step towards the legionary and drawing the destructive power of the Great Ocean into his fists. 'What warning do you bear?'

  'Only what you already know - that the powers you bartered with have not finished with you and your sons. There is a price yet to pay for past misdeeds.'

  Magnus laughed, a bitter bark freighted with boundless regret and unending sorrow.

  'What more can the Primordial Annihilator take from me?' said Magnus, sinking to his knees and lifting handfuls of broken glass and dust. 'The Wolves razed my world and burned our knowledge to ash! My sons are dying and I am helpless to save them!'

  'Magnus the Red, the Crimson King, helpless? No, you don't really believe that or you wouldn't be here.'

  Magnus let the glass and dust spill from his hands as he saw the gleam of partially exposed metal beneath him.

  'There is still a way to cheat your fate,' said the dead legionary.

  'How?'

  'You remember Morningstar?'

  'Yes, Atharva,' said Magnus. 'I remember Morningstar.'

  MORNINGSTAR, 853.M30

  THE FIFTY-FIFTH YEAR OF THE GREAT CRUSADE

  Category 8: DISASTER

  [Large scale and duration - localised populated area]

  One

  ZHARRUKIN • MASTER OF THE SONS • LORD OF IRON

  The dust swirled like a miniature vortex in Atharva's palm, its composite elements spun by the whims of the planet's increasingly chaotic magnetic fields. It was reckless to remain in Zharrukin's ruins in the face of the oncoming magna-storm, but the Thousand Sons did not lightly abandon knowledge won by lost generations.

  An ashen wind howled through the broken structures and collapsed ruins, as if in lament for the city's lost glories. It must once have been magnificent, the scale and plan of the remaining stumps of pitted marble suggestive of enormous constructions of polished stone and shimmer
ing glass.

  Zharrukin spread from the rugged haunches of the mountains, following the unnaturally straight groove of a wide river valley. A thousand years or more had passed since the city had been inhabited, and nature had reclaimed many of its ancient plascrete canyons and shattered thoroughfares.

  The architecture was pre-Old Night, bespoke and without the modularity that would later typify the aesthetic of humanity's ultra-rapid expansion to the stars. Morningstar had been settled early in the golden age of exploration, and Zharrukin was one of its earliest cities.

  'Was this where Morningstar's first king raised his capital?' Atharva asked as the dust danced in his hand. 'Why did your world alone stand untouched by the madness, but this city fall? Did your hubris bring you down, your greed? Or was it simply your time? Would that I could talk to you. What might you teach me?'

  Atharva knew he was being overly sentimental, but the thought of knowledge being forgotten was as painful to him as a gunshot. He eased his mind into an elevated plane of thought - something the Legion's newly established cults, the Fellowships, were calling 'Enumerations'.

  He'd read variants of the technique in the few ancient Achaemenian texts that had survived Cardinal Tang's purge of the Shi-Wu library, but only since leaving Prospero had he begun to perfect the technique The Enumerations allowed him to focus perfectly on the task at hand, to better construct the mental architecture required to face any given situation.

  Atharva studied the play of particles in his palm, watching them spin in ever more complex iterations. Iron oxide particles glittered, the remnants of something ancient and metallic, long since gone to dust amid the ruined city. He sought meaning in the patterns, echoes of the future woven within the random interactions of the dust's gyrations. Future-scrying had always been his focus, but sifting meaning from the Great Ocean's depths had always been challenging.

  He glanced from the dancing red dust to the curvature of his left shoulder guard. Emblazoned in pale ivory upon crimson was the serpentine star icon of the Thousand Sons Legion.

  Within it was the staring eye of his new Fellowship.