Magnus the Red: Master of Prospero Read online

  +It. Is. Working,+ Magnus cried out into the minds of his sons, feeling the inexorable descent of the mass-conveyor slowing.

  And as the great alchymists of Old Earth knew…

  +As above, so below!+

  The power wrought and expended from the surface of Morningstar was incredible, a weaving of immaterial energies a mere handful of beings had ever dared to wield before.

  And it was working.

  Magnus stood at the centre of a circle of power, channelling incomprehensible energies to achieve the impossible. His flesh was pellucid and incandescent, an angelic form to equal anything born of Baal.

  The mass of the Lux Ferem could not be stopped, but it could be slowed just enough. The city-sized weight of the mass-conveyor was barely ten metres overhead, Magnus and his warriors safe within the crater pushed up into its belly as the rest of the vessel settled on the platform with a groan of metal that went on and on until if felt like it would never stop.

  But it did stop.

  The Lux Ferem gently touched down on the platform it had only recently departed, kissing the ground with the tenderest touch. Its keel was broken and its mighty heart was spent. It would never fly again, and Morningstar would be its grave.

  But the majority of those borne within its hull were still alive.

  Magnus exhaled a breath of purest light and power, the last of the potent energies blazing from his fingertips and leaving him hollow and empty.

  The light from his body slowly faded, leaving only embers and sparks from the cracked hull overhead as their illumination. For now they were cut off from the outside world, enclosed within the dome his force had pushed into the Lux Ferem's hull.

  'You did it, my lord,' whispered Ahriman, his features gaunt and drained like a consumptive.

  Magnus nodded, too exhausted to speak. He did not trust his limbs to function nor his mind to form a coherent answer. He heard a rhythmic hammering sound, like a forge-master beating a blade into shape. It came over and over, like approaching thunder. Was he imagining it or was he simply hearing his heart finally giving out under the strain?

  'You did it, my lord,' repeated Phosis T'kar.

  'But at what cost?' replied Magnus, his gaze sweeping his immediate surroundings. His every breath was dry and metallic, his flesh searingly hot to the touch.

  Twenty-four of his warriors lay dead around him, their bodies little more than empty suits of armour filled with the ashen remains of their flesh. Fine grey dust poured from their sundered plate and molten flex-joints. Only Ahriman and Phosis T'kar had survived the psychic storm.

  'They are all dust,' said Magnus. 'Every one of them.'

  A great and terrible guilt swept through Magnus as the hammering sounded again, louder this time, more insistent.

  'What have I done?' he said as the last of his strength drained from his body and light flooded the cavern beneath the Lux Ferem. Magnus saw movement in the light, a vast being of burnished steel and fury, a titan in iron and yellow and black. He knew him, but could not name him.

  He fell, but did not hit the ground.

  'I have you, brother,' said Perturabo.

  Evacuation crews debarked the refugees from the Lux Ferem as swiftly as possible, leading thousands of weeping civilians back to the camps beyond the city walls. Upon these walls were battle companies of Iron Warriors, who now patrolled as if the city were an embattled outpost. Trust was in short supply and all further launches from Morningstar were abandoned until a functioning air traffic control could be set up within the fortress of the Iron Warriors.

  It had been the worst day in Morningstar's history. Not even the few short but violent wars that ravaged it in the centuries since its founding had claimed such a toll.

  The earthquake in Attar had claimed over fifteen thousand lives, but the death toll would have been higher had it not been for the intervention of Legion forces. Magnus and his warriors had rescued over two thousand souls from the ruins, and the Stor-Bezashk corps of the Iron Warriors cleared roads, erected bridges over newly torn fissures and organised the flow of refugees from the destroyed city with an efficiency that had been sadly absent from the governor's staff.

  Yet even amid such terrible suffering and loss of life, there were a few spots of light amid the darkness.

  Mechanicum Cybemetica cohorts followed a transponder signal to recover Magos Tancorix, who marched unharmed from the shattered hills around Attar bearing the wounded body of Major Anton Orlov across his shoulders.

  Konrad Vargha's unconscious body was borne from the wrecked Stormbird by Iron Warriors Apothecaries and taken to the medicae facilities within the Sharei Maveth.

  Rescue crews found the hideously burned bodies of Vashti Eshkol and Magos Tessza Rom in the rubble of Calaena's orbital command centre. Incredibly, they had survived the blast, and were even now being treated with life-saving technologies.

  Perturabo himself carried Magnus within his fortress.

  His sons stationed in Calaena rallied to him, but he did not stir. Every one of them had been joined with him at the moment of his fall. They had all felt his pain and caught a momentary glimpse into the mind of a god.

  Whether that knowledge would shape them for good or ill remained to be seen.

  Category 10: ANNIHILATION

  [Massive scale and duration - planetary event]

  Eight

  MISTAKES • A LEGENDARY NAME • MAKE THEM PAY

  Magnus drifted on tides unknown.

  An infinite white void surrounded him, without dimensions or points of reference. He did not know this place, but it was clearly not the Great Ocean.

  Perhaps this was what it was like to die? Or was this what a mind experienced when it finally let slip the moorings of existence and gave in to death?

  No, neither of those answers seemed satisfactory.

  For all that he had no experience of dying, this did not feel like the end of his body of light.

  He had no sensation of his flesh, no sight of the absurdly fragile silver thread that linked his power to his corporeal shell when soaring in the Great Ocean.

  Perhaps he had reached too far, dared too greatly, and this was the price he must pay. His body lived, but it was no longer linked to his mind. He had seen aspirants fail in this way before and watched as their bodies wasted away without the spirit to sustain them.

  Would that be his fate? Would his sons be forced to watch their sire fade, the skin pulling back on his skull, the flesh melting from his bones? Or would his miraculous gene-forged body endure forever, leaving him trapped in this limbo state?

  Who could know?

  The great dramaturge had only scratched the surface of things when he called death 'the undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveller returns'.

  If this was his fate, then Magnus would have no regrets.

  Better to have flown too close to the sun than never feel its heat…

  'I am still alive,' he said, and his voice was thrown back at him as though he stood in the centre of a great amphitheatre.

  Since no vistas were presenting themselves in this void, Magnus would conjure his own. If he was going to spend an eternity in this place, then he would be damned if he'd do it bored.

  Memories surged around him, a series of snapshots from his life: the climb into the hills of Prospero where he found the statue whose destruction gave rise to the Fellowships of the Thousand Sons; the inaugural conclave of the First Masters in the Reflecting Cave; taking a knee before his father upon their first meeting in Occullum Square, though in truth they had spoken for many years already.

  He conjured them at random, knowing all the while that nothing was every truly random, wondering which memory would come to the fore.

  The answer presented itself, as the night he had climbed the Astartes Tower to meet his father on the eve of his departure from Terra swam into focus.

  It had been a bittersweet moment, for they were both aware it would be many years before they met this way again.
The Great Crusade was a vision of supreme ambition, one that would take father and sons to the uttermost corners of the galaxy for decades, perhaps even centuries. Only a fool would entertain any notions of certainty on the commencement of such a singular undertaking.

  They had sat upon the highest peak of the slender tower and cast their minds out over the world, flying together one last time. Only then did Magnus understand he was not simply witnessing a memory, but was part of it.

  Their bodies of light threaded the deep canyons of the Mid-Atalantic Ridge then circled the arid dust basin of the Mid-Terranean before following the Urals from Kara Oceanica to the Kievan Rus Khaganate. They circled Mount Narodnya, watching the ghosts of Fulgrim and Ferrus Manus as they competed over the labour of twin weapons.

  'So perfect,' said the Emperor.

  'Which one?' asked Magnus, but his father just smiled.

  Magnus watched his brothers striving to outdo one another, finding their need to prove their superiority faintly ridiculous. What did it matter who could forge the best weapon when a primarch was a weapon unto himself?

  'You are so like me in so many ways,' said the Emperor. Magnus flushed with pride, but, as always, the Emperor's words carried multiple meanings. 'You have a great many of my strengths, but strength magnified to excess eventually becomes a weakness.'

  'How can that be?'

  'Confidence can spill over into arrogance,' said the Emperor. 'An obsessive pursuit of perfection can blind you to what it costs to achieve. Attention to detail can become micro-management. Magnus, you have my intellect and my power, but like me you are prone to believing you can do no wrong that your intellect lifts you above the risk of making petty mistakes or errors based on emotion.'

  'What mistakes have I made?' asked Magnus, dreading the answer.

  'Only time will tell what is a mistake and what is not, but an inability to believe you can ever make a mistake is dangerous. It leaves a mind open to certainty, and unwavering certainty is our greatest enemy. Always question and always be open to different way of thinking other ways of untangling the knot. That is the gift I give to you on this eve of our Crusade.'

  'I do not understand.'

  'You will, my son,' said the Emperor. 'Despite all I have just said, you are different enough from me that I can see how you will succeed where I have failed.'

  'Failed? How have you failed?'

  'I do not know yet,' said the Emperor with a wistful sheen to his subtle body. 'But I will soon, and I sense you and your favoured son must play a part in rectifying my mistakes.'

  'My favoured son?' asked Magnus. 'They are all my sons.'

  'There's truth in that, yes, but there is one who will bear your ambitions when you need them to travel farther than you could ever dream.'

  'Where in this galaxy can I not travel?' said Magnus.

  He felt his father's amusement.

  'There are always places a son will travel where his father should not,' replied the Emperor. 'Just when you believe there is nothing more to be done, one of your sons will show you how wrong you have been all this time.'

  'This sounds like gloomy advice, father,' said Magnus. 'I had hoped for something a little more inspiring as we venture out into the unknown.'

  'What could be more inspiring than to know you have taught your sons to reach greater heights than you? They are your immortality, Magnus.'

  No more had been said on the matter, and they had returned to their bodies atop the Astartes Tower to say farewell. His father had taken a seat by the great celestial occullum and the impossibly complex maps detailing His plans for galactic conquest. Though they had shared a sublime moment flying the aether, Magnus knew his time here was at an end. The Emperor turned and extended His hand, and Magnus looked into his father's eyes, wondering how he had not noticed the wistful look of sadness he now saw in them.

  'Remember this moment,' said the Emperor.

  'I will,' promised Magnus.

  He took his father's hand and Magnus gasped in sudden pain as his spirit was wrenched from the memory and hurled back into his body.

  Magnus opened his eye. Harsh lumen strips and hissing pipes hung from a ceiling of bare and brutal girders. The grim functionality of his surroundings sought to push the warm memory of his father from his mind.

  Magnus knew better than to suppose his consciousness had fashioned that particular memory purely by chance.

  What mistakes have I made on Morningstar?

  Every atom in his body was bathed in fire.

  Together with Ahriman and Phosis T'kar, Magnus marched through the arched, fresco-lined passageways of the Sharei Maveth. Iron Warriors flanked each intersection like knights of old and acid-etched blast doors lifted at every choke point. The interior of the Iron Warriors fortress was a beautiful deathtrap, a series of cunning blind alleys, bottlenecks and crossfires that would make any assault suicidal.

  Repercussive pain filled his bones with barbed wire, his veins with acid. He had known that such magnificent power could not be wielded without consequence, but this pain was beyond even his powers to ease.

  'Perhaps you should have remained on the medicae level, my lord,' said Ahriman.

  'I am grateful for your concern, Ahzek,' said Magnus, 'but I can tolerate this.'

  'I do not pretend to know how deep your pain runs, my lord, but the Pavoni were fussing over you like a newborn.'

  The image amused Magnus and he smiled, though even it sent a current of agony through the muscles of his face.

  'How did I get here?'

  'The Lord of Iron carried you,' said Phosis T'kar. 'He would not permit us to bear you.'

  Magnus heard the strain in Phosis T'kar's voice, and felt his son's anger that someone - even a primarch - not of the XV Legion had borne his wounded lord.

  'And how long have I been absent?' 'A day and a night,' answered Ahriman.

  'What have I missed?'

  'Morningstar is rushing to embrace its own extinction,' said Phosis T'kar. 'The last thirty hours have seen a sharp rise in attacks by the Sons of Shaitan - bombings, spree-killings and random acts of individual psychosis. We're seeing a wave of mass suicides in the refugee camps and escalating incidences of familial violence resulting in bloodshed.'

  'The Lux Ferem?' asked Magnus.

  'Fully evacuated,' said Ahriman. 'But there is something else you should know.'

  'What?'

  'Atharva and the warriors you sent to Zharrukin have not returned. We cannot raise them on the vox or contact them via psychic means.'

  Magnus paused to consider Ahriman's news, taking a moment to allow a sudden nausea to pass. Clearly his sense of secrets buried in Zharrukin had been correct, but what danger had he sent his sons into?

  'I will find them,' Magnus promised, letting out a hot breath. 'We do not leave any of our brothers behind.'

  The pain wracking his mind and body was intense; his spine felt as if every vertebra was being inexorably crushed in a forge-vice, and his thoughts moved like glue through his mind.

  He would be suffering this pain for weeks to come.

  'Where does this increase in attacks put us in terms of getting the rest of Morningstar evacuated?'

  He felt Ahriman and Phosis T'kar's reluctance to answer.

  'Better the Lord of Iron tells you,' said Ahriman.

  The heart of the Sharei Maveth had changed a great deal since Magnus had last seen it. Perturabo's sanctum still had the air of a workshop, but one with a series of impossible deadlines to meet.

  The vaulted space was now filled with new additions: hardwired cogitator banks drawing power from freshly installed battery racks, scores of lexmechanics and a hundred or more calculus logi passing linguascript at the speed of thought between adepts seconded from the Analyticae.

  Magos Tancorix held court over the new arrivals, and directed his Mechanicum staff with vigour as they attempted to untangle the chaos that threatened to overwhelm the evacuation effort.

  Perturabo and a dozen of hi
s warriors watched from his elevated workshop, and Magnus winced as he climbed the steps to meet his brother.

  Perturabo looked up as he approached, and his stoic expression lifted at the sight of Magnus. He stepped away from the warriors gathered around the table and shook his head.

  'I have long held that it would take something immense to kill one of us,' said Perturabo, 'but I had no idea you would take that as a challenge.'

  Magnus shrugged, masking the pain shooting down his spine.

  'I had to do something,' said Magnus. 'I could not stand by and let so many die. You would have done the same.'

  'Modesty doesn't suit you,' said Perturabo with a grin. 'I know I am strong, but even I would struggle to bear the weight of a starship.'

  'It was not physical strength that saved the Lux Ferem!

  'I know, but it does not matter how you saved that ship, only that you did. Tales of your heroism will travel far from Morningstar. The great primarch Magnus, who bore the weight of a vast starship upon his noble shoulders. This is how legends are born, brother.'

  Magnus had not considered the idea of his act becoming widely known, but with troublesome rumours already circulating the crusading expeditionary fleets, perhaps a story to reinforce the positive aspects of the Thousand Sons' abilities would be no bad thing.

  Perturabo nodded towards the viewscreen, calling up images of the many thousands of people beyond the city walls still awaiting rescue.

  'Have your legionaries told you what the people of Morningstar are calling you now?' asked Perturabo. 'At least, the ones who aren't killing themselves in droves.'

  'No, what?'

  'They call you the Crimson King. It has a nice ring to it, don't you think?'

  'That it does,' agreed Magnus.

  Perturabo placed one hand on his shoulder, the other at his neck, pulling him close for a fraternal embrace.

  His next words were for Magnus alone.

  'You came a heartbeat from death,' he whispered. 'By all rights, you should have died. And our father's Great Crusade would have been robbed of one of its brightest sons, brighter even than dear Horus. More importantly, I would have lost a dear brother. There are none among our kin I regard as highly as you, so promise me you won't risk your life like that again.'