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Amor Fati – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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AMOR FATI

by Michael Haspil

I

Eidolon stood before them in the Proudheart’s battle cage unarmed and clad only in a loincloth.

Four more slaves charged. This batch, like the others, held weapons sourced from the Chapter’s own armoury. Powerblades and a chainaxe. The largest of the swords merely an initiate’s gladius, a main gauche for an Astartes warrior. They frothed at the mouth with a mixture of bile, saliva and inchoate rage, fuelled by Fabius’ concoction.

By contrast, Eidolon breathed in ragged gasps, not due to exertion, but through frustration and a rage of his own. Subconsciously he raised his hand to his throat. His fingers sought out the raised weal of the suture which circumscribed his neck. His arm convulsed and twitched of its own volition and filled him with revulsion and magnificent pain.

One moment’s genuine misunderstanding. Eidolon had not chosen his words with enough care…

Fulgrim whirled on him, his arm arced back. The anathame glittered in the transcendent light. Eidolon now saw his adored primarch as only enemies did, and he was glorious! The most perfect being he had ever loved.

Combat instinct forced him to move. His hand drew his own blade, brought it up in a doomed attempt to parry the will of a god. Eidolon felt himself knocked across the chamber. He fell on the terrazzo floor, slid, and tumbled, then crashed to a stop.

Strangely he felt no pain.

He tried to regain his footing, but his body didn’t respond. He saw Fulgrim turn away from a decapitated figure – sword still firmly in the scabbard.

He blinked in disbelief as the sensations of shock, confusion and betrayal roiled for his attention. Fulgrim grasped him by the hair and spoke, but Eidolon couldn’t make out the words. His attention on the mortal realm waned, but instead of finding darkness to greet him, a kaleidoscope of colours met him and something – he struggled to remember – squatted on the edge of his perceptions like a half-forgotten name.

The slaves’ attacks returned him to the moment.

He killed the first two without foreplay for the audacity of bringing him from his reverie, then slapped away the third’s thrust and caved in its sternum with a punch. He sent the last’s body sliding across the marble deck to rest at the base of a stone pillar, amongst the wreckage of mangled battle servitors.

He grew bored. His concentration and purpose for this exercise slipped from him as the experiences of their deaths turned flat and grey and dull. He flipped his once lustrous hair – now stringy and clumped into patchy strands – from out of his view and ran his hand over his face. Frail parchment skin stretched taut over sunken cheeks confirmed the affront to the perfection he had always sought.

Fulgrim’s words echoed in his mind. ‘The fault lies with Fabius and his imperfect work. Remind me to punish him for making you stupid and ugly.’

Without Fabius, Eidolon would still be entertained by or entertaining whatever lay beyond the veil… whatever it was he couldn’t remember.

‘More,’ he growled.

Fabius answered him, ‘This is a waste and will not achieve what you seek.’

‘Can you not still render their bodies and distil their essences for your unguents and libations?’

‘I can. But their sentient suffering is lost, and you’ll agree that something of the flavour is dampened, resulting in a base and pedestrian death, instead of an experience worthy of my talents,’ Fabius answered. The great machine known as the chirurgeon clicked and whirred on his back.

‘More,’ Eidolon repeated.

This next group held little promise save for one. A tall man, powerfully built, bore many scars. Where the other three slaves cowered and averted their eyes, he stared directly at Eidolon and dared match his gaze. The depth of hatred in the man’s eyes made Eidolon lick his lips. He wondered what it must be like for this man to have lost everything and be moments from a meaningless death, yet still stand defiant. A warrior.

‘Fabius, do not give that one the liquid madness – only the physical stimulants, I want his mind intact.’

Fabius shook his head with apparent regret. ‘As you will. Such a specimen might have withstood hours under excruciation. A waste of good suffering.’

Stimulants coursed through the man’s body. He bounced on the balls of his feet and bent to retrieve an Astartes combat knife from the pile of weapons. In his grip it looked like a short sword.

As an afterthought, Eidolon realised the other slaves had started to attack him. Uninspired. Indeed, he had already slain one of them subconsciously, barely registering a threat and dispatching it by rote. The other two attacked, but one fell before he could close with Eidolon, betrayed by his body’s frail constitution. Eidolon snapped the other man’s neck with a series of blows, all punches after the first redundant, the man already dead on his feet.

The warrior barked debased Low Gothic in Eidolon’s direction.

Eidolon taunted him in return. ‘I am the one who took everything from you. Kill me and you will have vengeance, at least.’

The knife’s edge glittered, reflecting the dim and flickering lights surrounding the battle cage as the warrior came at him with a series of feints. This piqued Eidolon’s interest. There was skill here, enough to appreciate, enough to garner his fleeting interest.

Eidolon’s shoulder spasmed and sent uncoordinated twitches down the length of his arm. It ruined the moment and reminded him of his loathsome imperfections.

Damn Fulgrim.

The attack almost presented a threat. The man had confidence, rage and a grim determination, but for the cocktail of emotions to edge towards completion Eidolon needed to meld it with desperation and despair.

Eidolon’s genhanced bulk pirouetted into the air and came down perfectly, nearly behind the warrior, and effortlessly plucked the combat knife from his grip. But only in his mind’s eye. Instead, his leg buckled when he tried to leap. He stumbled clumsily and nearly fell, only narrowly avoiding the warrior’s knife-edge.

He remembered his primarch’s words. ‘It is a poor puppeteer who controls you,’ Fulgrim had said, his lip curling in distaste. ‘Your walk is ugly and foolish, and you move like a greenskin. It offends me, and I do not wish to see it. Stay behind me until you can perambulate with a measure of grace.’

Eidolon knew what he had to do. On the warrior’s next thrust, he moved just a hair too slowly. He intended for the warrior to cut him, to give him a tantalisingly small taste of victory.

Instead, Eidolon’s body betrayed him again.

The man’s knife plunged into Eidolon’s chest, but even with Fabius’ stimms flowing through him, the strike lacked the necessary force to push through the black carapace and Eidolon’s fused ribcage. The warrior tried to pull the knife back, but it was firmly lodged in the bone. The man backed away, finally sensing the futility of his actions. A pall of despair drove much of the fire from his eyes. He understood now.

Eidolon screamed in frustration. The Laeran organ in his throat began to warble with the harmonic frequencies to form his sonic scream. He suppressed it.

He remembered the knife in his chest, an instant’s diversion, the experience entirely unworthy and unnotable. He twisted the blade free and flexed with the pain of it. He offered it back to the warrior, who spat in defiance. Eidolon tossed the knife at the man’s feet, but even that action was clumsy and awkward. Centuries of skilled practice lost. This brought Eidolon a tiny burst of self-pity.

There was luxury in self-pity, but the experience of it was of a mean sort, unworthy for a lord commander of Eidolon’s stature. One who’d help slay a demigod and birth a new god in his place.

‘I move like a greenskin.’ Eidolon repeated his primarch’s assessment and let the rage boil over.

Even as the warrior swooped to retrieve the combat knife, Eidolon was on him. His hand snatched the man’s throat, lifted him bodily into the air, and slammed him into the decking. The man’s head snapped back from the force of the blow and his skull cracked, spraying blood and brains across the marble.

‘More,’ Eidolon demanded.

‘I think not,’ Fabius replied.

Eidolon whirled on the Apothecary. ‘You dare defy me openly?’

Fabius barked a laugh, as if to say it hadn’t been the first time and it wouldn’t be the last, the open challenge in his manner self-evident. ‘I only mean to say you will not find what you seek murdering pathetic slaves.’

‘And what do I seek?’ Eidolon asked.

Fabius didn’t answer, prompting him to continue.

Eidolon picked at the scab which had formed from his chest wound and allowed the blood to flow and coagulate once more. ‘Lucius was slain by a loyalist, was he not? Were not his circumstances similar to mine? Why is he not afflicted with these maladies?’

Fabius answered, ‘He did not suffer a primarch’s ire. And he was scarcely dead. It was beneath my talents to restore Lucius. A parlour trick.’

‘Your experiments upon my corpse, perfected upon my undeserving brother.’

‘Think what you will. But if you understood artistry as much as you pretend to, you would revel in deepest rapture at the miracle I alone have wrought.’

Eidolon grunted, unwilling to concede Fabius’ point. His head jerked and sent spasms and agony running down both his arms.

Fabius took on a pensive look and began to pace along the circumference of the battle cage. He spoke to himself, ‘Perhaps there may be a way. Yes. It would be interesting in the very least and provide precious data for–’

‘What? How? What way?’ Eidolon pressed himself against the walls of the battle cage. His fingers entwined in the wire mesh.

‘I might be able to reverse the effects and restore you completely to your former glories. I would need the progenoid glands from one of the Legion.’

‘Easy enough to acquire.’ Eidolon’s mind already sorted through which of his brethren he’d be willing to sacrifice.

‘Not so. It would need to be untouched by the Dark Prince’s gifts.’

‘There’s the rub,’ Eidolon said. ‘Am I to comb and sift through the ashes of Isstvan III?’

‘There are others whom you may seek. Secrets from an ancient shame. If they persist…’ Lost in his own thoughts, Fabius swept out of the chamber.

Eidolon made to follow the Apothecary, but first moved to the body of the warrior and awkwardly knelt beside the corpse’s head. He poked around the ragged edges of the broken skull and fished out a chunk of grey matter and popped it into his mouth, savouring the greasy taste of it. His omophagea gland processed and distilled the man’s final memories and emotions so that Eidolon could experience them.

Eidolon savoured the cocktail of sensations. He relished the man’s recognition of his doom, but simultaneous refusal to accept defeat. His death wasn’t a complete waste; more than a mere amuse-bouche.

He threw back his head and roared.

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