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A Memory of Tharsis – Extract

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A Memory of Tharsis

Josh Reynolds

The black mills of Quir never slept.

Volcanic furnaces constantly vomited clouds of grey ash up through sky-scraping chimneys. The thunder of mining equipment echoed forever up from abyssal quarries. Everywhere was the cacophony of industry run wild. It echoed even unto the uppermost reaches of the stratosphere, and the half-finished orbital docking ring that girdled Quir like a halo of metal. But it wasn’t merely that hellish clamour which caused Fabius Bile to wince in discomfort as he descended the ramp to the landing platform.

Rather, it was the sound of raw voices, raised in song. The atonal din caused the thin air to reverberate, and made Bile’s remaining teeth itch down to their cancerous roots. His fingers clenched about the skull of brass that topped the sceptre he leaned on. It glowed faintly with an unnatural sheen. Power thrummed through it, menacing and covetous. There was an intelligence there, if rudimentary, and it desired to be put to use. The sceptre was an amplifier, and its slightest touch could elicit a raging torrent of agony in even the strongest subject. He’d named it Torment, in a fit of whimsy.

Bile had no doubt that a similar compulsion had motivated this unwelcome display. Hunched, malformed shapes clad in the ragged remnants of ancestral hazard suits stood on the rust-riddled landing platform before him. No two of the factory workers were alike. Some were mostly human, save for an unsightly deformity, while others were barely bipedal. A few sported feathers or scales. Many had coiling, cephalopod-like tentacles rather than hands. One lumbering brute bore a rack of antlers that would have put a Fenrisian elk to shame. They were arrayed in two rows to either side of the disembarkation ramp, like soldiers awaiting the arrival of a visiting dignitary.

The mutants swayed in time to the orchestral piece echoing down from the gargoyle-shaped vox-casters mounted high above the landing platform. The bursts of music drew forth a crude hymn from the ravaged throats of the gathered workers. Cybernetic cherubs swooped overhead, brass-and-steel wings hissing. The tiny creatures shrilled at one another in corrupted binary as they swept incense-spewing censers back and forth above the gathering, further adding to the baroque ridiculousness of it all.

Bile stood for a moment, taking it all in. Hololithic readouts shimmered into view before his eyes as his power armour’s sensors scanned his immediate surroundings. Familiar genetic patterns sprawled lazily across the data, each one marked with the telltale spiral of his signature. His lips stretched in a thin smile.

These creatures were his children, in all the ways that mattered. He had grown their ancestors in vats, pulled them screaming from the darkness and delivered them up to their destiny. To see their descendants now evoked in him a rare flicker of pity, if only for the squandered potential. And yet, they thrived. They were strong, in their way. Durable. Adaptable, if lacking in the ability to carry a tune. Fit for purpose. That was all the Lady Spohr, Magos-Queen of Quir, asked of them.

Spohr was a strange one, even by the standards of renegade Mechanicus adepts. Like all queens, she demanded fitting tribute from her supplicants. If she was displeased with her gift, things could get out of hand very quickly. The rotting remains of those who’d disappointed her hung from the chimneys of her factories. No one lived to repeat such foolishness.

Each time he came to Quir looking for repairs to his ancient and dilapidated medicae equipment, he had to bring something new and utterly unique. Things that no other supplicant could offer her. It was almost a game. He had crafted her workers, woven a fleshweave, even cloned her original organic form, for purposes she had not divulged. But she had been growing bored with his arts even then. Still, he would persevere. He had a responsibility.

That was his work. To improve upon the flawed designs of those who had come before, and seed the stars with a New Man – one adapted to the grim darkness of the current millennium. The weight of such a destiny threatened to crush him, at times. But he would press on, whatever the cost. The task must be completed.

He sighed and started down the ramp. The ancient servos in his armour whined in protest, and the stretched faces of his skin-coat moaned softly. Securing Spohr’s services was imperative. And for that, he needed to keep her engaged. Once she had her tribute, she would inevitably lose interest. During their previous interactions, it was only by holding her attention, by engaging her organic half, that he had been able to ensure that he got what he needed, afterwards. Like the queens of old, Spohr had little interest in fair bargains.

An honour guard of cybernetic soldiers waited at the foot of the ramp. They were clad in shell-like ceramite beneath thick coats and cowls, and clutched antique radium carbines. Strange sigils had been carved into the ceramite, and their coats, like his own, were made from a patchwork of stolen flesh. Some wore grotesque masks beneath their cowls, while others had exposed faces that were more metal than meat. They watched his approach warily, targeting lenses whirring as they took stock of him. His own targeting systems returned the favour, intercepting and meshing with the foreign systems, albeit briefly. His armour, like many things exposed to the persistent environmental uncertainties of warp space, had developed something akin to a rudimentary sentience. Its curiosity, like his own, was insatiable.

For an instant, he saw himself through the artificial optics of the cybernetic warriors. A helmet, pockmarked by impact craters, its colouring scraped away to reveal bare grey ceramite in places. Metallic arachnid limbs, topped by blades, saws and glistening syringes, rose over his bent frame, twitching in time to some faint, internal modulation. Like his armour and Torment, the chirurgeon had a mind of its own. Bile smiled. At times, he fancied that he wasn’t so much a singular being as a colony of like-minded symbiotes – each of them feeding off and being fed on in turn by the others. They were as much a part of him as the blight that gnawed at his vitals like an all-consuming fire. He grimaced. Thinking of it made the pain worse. The blight was eating him hollow. Soon, he would be gone entirely.

The chirurgeon hissed, and a syringe jabbed his neck. A cool flush filled his system, burying the pain beneath a chemical balm. There were more important matters to attend to than his own inevitable slide into dissolution. Only his work mattered. Work that would stutter to a halt unless he secured the services of his hostess.

An enclosed mechanised palanquin wheezed its way across the loading platform on six pneumatic limbs. It was an ornate monstrosity, dripping with unnecessary gilt and machine-carved grotesquery. Its curtains were made from a chromatic fleshweave of his own design, which shifted hues with every step of its heavy, clawed feet. It was one of his more recent gifts to the mistress of this world, and one he took no little pride in. Though he often preferred to err on the side of function over form, it was nonetheless a rare pleasure in these fraught times to indulge his creativity.

More of the cybernetic soldiers followed the palanquin at a disciplined lope, their radium carbines held at the ready. These were more heavily armoured than the others, less meat and more machine, sealed in crustacean-like shells of almost organic-looking metal. They wore masks that had been wrought in the shape of daemonic faces, and their coats were branded with the runes of the four Ruinous Powers. They steamed with unnatural heat in the open air, as if whatever passed for their blood was on the cusp of boiling over.

Bile could feel a familiar quiver in the air that had nothing to do with the off-key singing of the assembled workers. The warriors were conversing with one another, and with their mistress, through a neural node-link. He smiled politely, awaiting her arrival. The palanquin slowed as it approached, and its limbs bent with a querulous groan. It lowered itself to the ground. The curtains curled aside with a somnolent murmur as the Magos-Queen of Quir rose and stepped down onto the platform.

The Lady Spohr was a work of art destined never to be completed. She was tall and heavy, built for war rather than idle contemplation. Thick robes, intricately woven with scenes from Martian legend, hid her lower half, and her upper was encased in a heavy golden cuirass bulging with bundles of cables, pumps, hoses and sensory nodes. Smoke issued from vents on her armour, filling the air around her with a cloying miasma.

Thin sensor-filaments extended outwards from her chest and shoulders, their tips pulsing in time to a silent rhythm. Her arms were folded before her, loose sleeves dangling. Her cowl was thrown back, revealing a skull of gold, etched in binary, and a profusion of isolated power cables, which spilled across her shoulders like the mane of some veldt-born felinoid. She wore a loose belt of silver-plated skulls about the swell where her hips might once have been. Each of the silver skulls was marked with a different cogwheel rune.

Her eyes clicked, focusing on him. She moved forwards smoothly, with artificial grace. Bile bowed as low as he was able, and said, ‘You are truly a most welcome sight for this weary traveller, my lady. A beacon in the eternal night of our exile.’

Spohr paused. ‘Flattery. A sure sign you have come to bargain, Fabius.’ Her voice was not the rasp one might expect. Instead, her words clicked like well-oiled gears. ‘I hope you have brought a suitable tribute.’ She glanced up at the gunship. ‘A sensor sweep of your vessel revealed nothing of interest.’ There was a warning note in her voice. ‘I considered destroying you as you descended, as a warning to others. It is not wise to come here empty-handed.’

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A Black Library Publication

First published in Black Library Live! 2016 Chapbook.
This eBook edition published in 2017 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd,
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Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Original illustration by Mark Gibbons.

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ISBN: 978-1-78572-682-8

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