Fabius Bile: Clonelord Read online

  ‘So I have always thought.’ Khorag looked down at him. ‘What are you planning to do with the gene-seed?’

  Fabius glanced at him. ‘What do you think? Use it, obviously.’

  ‘For what?’

  Fabius hesitated. ‘I haven’t decided yet. But better it remain in my hands, than to waste it on Eidolon’s petty warmongering.’

  ‘It would make a fine sacrifice, were you of a mind. Such a prize would earn the favour of the gods, for whosoever brought it to them. Lesser men might seek apotheosis, on the back of such a thing.’

  Fabius snorted. ‘I am in no hurry to die, Khorag. And that is what apotheosis is – death. Death of psyche, death of free will.’ He thought of what Saqqara had said, and quickly brushed it aside. In the cold light of day, it was nonsense.

  ‘That which is not dead, may eternal strive,’ Khorag murmured, as if reading his mind. ‘Or so the sons of Lorgar are wont to say in their piety.’

  ‘Eternal strife may appeal to some, but I have a higher purpose,’ Fabius said loftily. ‘One that is more important than the affections of any imaginary deity.’

  ‘Never doubt that Grandfather loves you, Fabius,’ Khorag said slyly. ‘For that is his way. You are no less his child than bellicose Typhus, though you have never bent knee at his altars. That illness you strive against so mightily? It is a gift.’

  ‘A gift? I am rotting on the bone.’

  ‘Yes, and were that not the case, would you have accomplished half of what you have done? Or would you have descended into decadence with the rest of your brothers?’ Khorag gave a wheezing chuckle. ‘I think not. Then, perhaps I am wrong. How much blood will your followers spill, do you think? Enough to satiate Khorne? How many schemes do you weave, an intricate latticework of plot and counter-plot? How strongly do you hope, Fabius?’

  Fabius turned away. Saqqara had said something similar. To hear it again, and from Khorag, made him uneasy. ‘Madness.’ As he watched, the stars seemed to take on the outline of a vast, chortling face. Only for a moment, and it was gone in the blink of an eye. But it had existed long enough to leave him feeling even more disconcerted.

  ‘Truth.’ Khorag shrugged. ‘Then, they are often one and the same, as you yourself have noted. We all feed the gods, Fabius. Whether we like it or not. Even if you are right, and they are nothing more than eddies in the great psychic ocean, they are still potent. Why, then, do you resist what they offer?’

  ‘Because what they offer is not freely given,’ Fabius said. ‘It is a bargain, as Horus discovered to his cost. And Fulgrim, before him. There is no true benevolence to that cosmic miasma you so childishly refer to as “grandfather”. It is simply a… disharmony. A discordant note in the music of the spheres.’ He bared his teeth at his reflection in the surface of the observation port. He was looking drawn and starved, though still healthy, for the moment. His body had begun to devour itself from within. ‘An imperfection.’

  Khorag was silent for long moments. Then, he laughed. A soft, liquid sound, like a boil popping. Almost gentle, in its good humour. ‘Only you would see that as a flaw.’ He tapped a rust-riddled knuckle against the surface of the observation port. ‘It is the flaw in the thing that makes it interesting, Fabius. A song without mistakes is just noise.’

  It was Fabius’ turn to laugh. ‘And only a sour pustule like yourself would claim that mistakes are art. The universe is like clockwork, Khorag. Innumerable cogs and gears clicking along in perfect harmony. But if something slips, if a gear wears down, it puts stress on the entire mechanism. These gods you serve? They are that stressor, that slipped gear. Entropy, given a face and a name by halfwits.’

  ‘Better to embrace entropy than resist it, Fabius. A man cannot turn back the tide.’

  ‘No, but he can divert it. He can build a dam. Failing that, he can move out of its way.’ Fabius looked at Khorag. ‘It is too late for you. You’ve already drowned. But my head is still above water, Khorag.’

  ‘Perhaps. But for how long, my friend?’ Khorag asked. He laid a heavy hand on Fabius’ shoulder-plate, but only for a moment. The chirurgeon didn’t like it when others got too close. A whirring bone-drill swung towards the Death Guard’s face, but didn’t strike. Such a drill could cut through even Tactical Dreadnought armour. Khorag stepped back slowly. Carefully.

  ‘Long enough,’ Fabius said. ‘Until my work is done.’

  Merix sat in the dark, watching several of his warriors make use of the training cages. He had not trained in some time. His muscles ached for lack of exertion. But he could not stir himself to the effort. So instead, he sat and resisted the urge to look at the pale things that danced just out of the corner of his eye. He ignored their whispers and their feather-light caresses, as they tried to attract his attention.

  Neverborn haunted the corridors of the Vesalius. They were weak things, claimed by no god, and hungry for adulation. He thought they were akin to parasites, nestling in the belly of a great beast. Sometimes they made themselves bodies out of cast-off flesh or forgotten machinery, and became nuisances. Then, they were purged with fire and blade. Otherwise, they were ignored, like the weather.

  The air hummed with the crash of blades and soft, panting voices. There were no slaves here, no indulgences of the flesh. Chemical delights, to be sure, but those were strictly regulated. Only strength mattered. And skill.

  He watched, and they knew that he watched. And so they performed ever more deadly feats of skill, seeking to impress him. He snorted. Why they did so, he could not fathom. But he accepted their respect, for it was dangerous to cast aside such gifts when they were offered. Something the Clonelord ought to have learned long before now.

  He caught sight of Bellephus, slouched down among the cages, ostensibly waiting his turn. The gutter-poet gave no sign that he noticed that he was being observed, but Merix knew better. Bellephus rarely went anywhere, save under Savona’s orders.

  She was spying on him. He smiled thinly and flexed his hand. She would make her move soon. She had no patience. He almost looked forward to the inevitable confrontation. They’d clashed before, during their service to Kasperos Telmar. The Radiant King had encouraged such brutality among his subordinates. The Chief Apothecary didn’t, but that rarely stopped Savona.

  She would kill him, unless he killed her first. He wasn’t sure which outcome he preferred, just yet.

  ‘You do not train with them.’

  Merix turned. Flavius Alkenex stood nearby, his helmet under one arm, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword. The Hero, Triumphant. Merix looked away. ‘No.’

  ‘You are in command,’ Alkenex said, joining Merix. The prefect had been wandering the decks of the frigate for days, learning the lay of the land, speaking with this squad commander, or that warrior. Merix had avoided him thus far, but it seemed the moment was at hand, whatever his desires.

  ‘Nominally,’ Merix said.

  ‘They speak of you respectfully.’

  Merix laughed. ‘You are a bad liar.’

  Alkenex gestured dismissively. ‘I do not lie.’

  ‘Then they do.’ Merix flexed his bionic hand. ‘What do you want?’ He asked the question more out of politesse than curiosity. He knew the answer already.

  ‘To talk. To speak of what is, and what might be.’

  A guttural laugh slithered through the grill of Merix’s respirator. ‘Savona is the one you wish to speak to. I am beyond caring about such things, these days.’

  Alkenex frowned. ‘She is not of the Legion.’

  ‘There is no Legion.’ Merix turned away. His hand was beginning to ache again. Sharp claws of pain dug into the meat of him. ‘There is just us. What do you want?’

  ‘It is beyond time that the Twelfth Millennial re-joined the Legion. I am here to make that happen. You should not be wasting your days playing servant for a lunatic.’ Alkenex looked around, the ghost of a sneer
on his face.

  ‘A lunatic who was – is – lieutenant commander of our Legion.’ The wispy shapes crept closer, moving between the dust motes which drifted through the glare of the lumens. He could more easily discern their hissing recriminations, just at the edge of his hearing.

  ‘Was,’ Alkenex said firmly. ‘Any claim he had to that position is long gone. The Legion has moved on without him, and good riddance.’

  ‘And who will take his place – you?’

  Alkenex laughed. ‘Perhaps.’ He peered at Merix. ‘I know you, Merix. You were equerry to Lord Commander Hellespon, before Eidolon took his head at Oliensis. You proved yourself competent enough in his service.’

  ‘Damned with faint praise. You serve Eidolon.’

  ‘I have that honour.’

  ‘Does Eidolon desire the broken remnants of our humble company so badly then? There are scarce a hundred of us left. We’re not even half strength.’

  Alkenex nodded. ‘Which is why you need help. Swear yourself to Eidolon’s service, and you will flourish, as you never could have with Kasperos Telmar. Or with Fabius Bile.’

  Merix studied him. Alkenex made a good show of earnestness, but Merix could detect the note of falsehood. This was not Oleander’s dream of a restored Legion, but something new. Something more savage.

  He missed Oleander. The Apothecary had been a scheming fool, but he’d had some shred of honour left to him. He’d wanted the same things Merix had, though it was rare that he admitted it. They’d believed in the same ghosts. The false perfection of the Legion as it had been, rather than as it was.

  He glanced down at his hand and the strange, new nerves growing within the metal. It would be a new thing soon. In a few centuries. The Neverborn pressed close, their whispers drowning out the sound of blades from the training cages. He looked back up at Alkenex.

  ‘Tell me more.’

  Savona studied the entrance to the laboratorium with distaste. It was not so large as the one Fabius maintained in the apothecarium, but it was large enough to contain the bulk of its current master, as well as his diverse experiments. Even from where she stood down the corridor, the miasmatic stench was overpowering.

  Too, this stretch of passage was badly affected by whatever horrors were growing within the chamber. Stretches of mould crept along the internal bulkheads and hung glistening from the conduits above. Pipes had rusted through and burst, releasing a persistent humidity into the corridor. Deck plates buckled back from their frames like peeling scabs, and lumens flickered oddly beneath patinas of grease.

  Two mutants stood on guard to either side of the hatch, holding crudely fashioned glaives in their bandaged paws. Both were covered in sores and scabrous lesions beneath the worn plates of their armour. They wore ragged robes and heavy rebreathers, which hissed intermittently as poison air circulated through diseased lungs.

  Savona wanted to get inside the laboratorium, but the guards would seek to prevent her, whatever her status. The Apothecaries of the Consortium valued their privacy, and their servants would fight to the death to protect it. Still, two mutants would be hardly any trouble at all. She lifted her maul and prepared to confront the guards.

  A sudden, strong odour choked her, as a heavy hand fell on her shoulder. So intent had she been on the guards, that she’d failed to hear the grinding tread of the laboratorium’s master. For an instant, she regretted leaving Bellephus to watch over Merix’s movements. ‘A visitor? How unexpected.’ She was spun about and pinned to the wall, a wide hand about her throat. ‘I so rarely receive guests.’

  Khorag Sinj studied her with rheumy eyes. His helmet was clamped to his leg, exposing a wasted skull, nestled in a thicket of hose pipes and circulation units. Jets of opaque gas vented from the pressure valves implanted in his hollow cheeks, creating an oily halo about his withered head. Limp strands of colourless hair were plastered to his scalp, or were tangled amid the hoses. Blackened teeth showed in a lipless grin. ‘Ah, the warrior-woman.’ His grip tightened slightly. ‘Why are you here? Is there some service you wish of me? A weaponised pestilence, perhaps? Or a subtle nerve agent of some sort? I assure you, my price is always fair.’

  ‘No. I came to talk.’ Savona had to stand on the tips of her hooves to avoid being throttled. He was far stronger than she’d suspected. It wasn’t simply the Tactical Dreadnought armour he wore, but something more intrinsic. A fell strength, bought through devotion. Like her, Khorag had long ago made a choice, and like her, that choice was stamped on his face, for all the galaxy to see.

  That was why she had come to him first. The faithful could only trust one another. Khorag studied her for a moment, and then released her. ‘Very well. Come.’ He lumbered past her, towards his laboratorium. The mutants fell to their hands and knees, groaning in greeting. Khorag patted one’s head as the hatch cycled open. A noxious cloud emerged, wafting through the corridor. Savona gagged and drew a perfumed rag, made from the woven hair of an eldar, from her armour and pressed it to her mouth and nose.

  The laboratorium beyond more resembled a toxic sump than a place of discovery. Unsteady stacks of canisters leaked acidic fluids across the scarred deck plates, and the reinforced walls were pitted and marked by corrosive agents. Power cables had been yanked from the ceiling and crudely spliced into rusty generators, and sections of pipe and hose had been excised from ruptured sections of the wall and connected to burbling chem-units.

  There was a layer of grime and mould covering almost everything. Fruiting bodies clustered in alcoves and recesses. The fungi were vibrantly hued and distastefully fleshy, even to Savona’s sensibilities.

  Khorag’s beast, Paz’uz, bounded into view, knocking over canisters and bubbling alembic towers in its haste. The daemon-beast slobbered over its master, snuffling and grunting in greeting. Its eye-stalks swivelled towards her, and it made as if to leap playfully upon her, before Khorag caught it by the scruff of its flabby neck. He tossed the beast aside, as if it weighed no more than a feather. ‘No. Go play with the nurglings.’

  Paz’uz made a sound halfway between a growl and a groan, before gambolling after a number of tiny, fat shapes, disturbed from their hiding places by its landing. The little creatures scuttled away, giggling eerily. Savona grimaced. ‘Foul little blobs. How can you get anything done, with them around?’

  ‘How can you not?’ Khorag retorted. He set his helmet on an examination slab, and began to de-couple hoses from the nodes in his neck and skull. They spurted gases into the moist air, and he sighed. ‘That’s better.’ He looked at her. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘As I said, to talk.’

  ‘On what topic? Not plagues, I’d guess.’

  She waved a hand in front of her face, trying to dispel some of the murk drifting down from above her. Censers hung from the ceiling, spewing thick clouds of softly glowing spores into the murky air. Swarms of fat-bodied flies hummed listlessly through the spore-clouds, dancing in slow, strange circles.

  ‘Treachery.’

  ‘Ah. A most bilious broth indeed. But not one to my taste these days.’ He turned away. ‘However, I am pleased to see that you are making your move at last. Fabius will be disappointed, of course – he wagered you’d wait at least another decade. But I said to myself, no – there’s a warrior with ambition.’

  ‘You… wagered on it?’ She didn’t know why it surprised her so. The members of the Consortium, diverse as they were, were utterly mad. She shook her head. ‘Never mind. The treachery is not mine.’

  ‘Then whose?’

  ‘Alkenex,’ she said, not looking at him. ‘He’s up to something.’

  ‘Yes. And?’

  She glared at him. ‘He’s spent the time since we left Harmony agitating among Thalopsis’ old cronies – there’s still hurt feelings from the Manflayer’s curt conclusion to their game. He is moving against the lieutenant commander.’

  Khorag nodded.
‘Of course he is. That is part of the game.’ He ­chuckled wetly. ‘Rest assured that Fabius is already aware of the prefect’s intentions.’ He pointed a thick finger at her. ‘The question is, whose side are you on?’

  ‘My own, as always.’ It was always prudent to determine who was on what side, before making your loyalties known. That Alkenex had not come to her yet, when he had visited so many others, was nothing short of an insult. While the Manflayer was no more pleasant a commander, at least he had the courtesy to regard her as a threat.

  ‘A good answer. A strong answer. The gods love strength, and despise weakness, save where it leads to some advantage.’ He grunted phlegmatically. ‘The gods love him more than any of us, I suspect.’ He chortled and shook his head. ‘A funny thing, that. Then, Horus was an un­believer as well. And Mortarion too. At least at first. They say there are none so fierce as a convert.’

  Savona nodded, thinking of her own transformation. ‘What is he planning?’

  ‘Planning? Nothing. He waits, as always. When the moment comes, he will act.’ He turned back to the examination slab. The equipment there was a mouldy, rusty mess, but still somehow functional. Greasy alembics began to bubble as he worked.

  ‘And will you act with him?’

  ‘If he requires.’

  ‘Why?’ The question came unbidden to her lips. She had come to test the waters, but now found herself drawn deeper than she had intended. ‘Why do you follow him? What can he offer you?’

  ‘Knowledge, child. There is no keener mind in this galaxy than that sour chunk of meat that occupies his skull. He has forgotten more about the inner workings of man and xenos alike than any other Apothecary has ever known. I came to him to learn how to craft new and better contagions, so that Grandfather’s blessings might be shared more freely. There are secret plagues from Old Night in these containers, and virulent infections culled from crumbling bones of long-dead aeldari.’ He patted one of the canisters fondly. ‘And with these raw materials, and his aid, I have made wonders and horrors undreamt of by even the most glopsome of my brothers. Plagues that would devour even the rubbery flesh of Grandfather’s children…’