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Light of a Crystal Sun – Josh Reynolds

A Black Library Publication

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Light of a Crystal Sun

by Josh Reynolds

The dead alien screamed.

An impossibility, the observer felt. The dead could not scream. And yet, somehow, it did. A long, ululating cry, brittle and sharp. It rose from the crystalline shape held within the flickering confines of a specially designed sensor array, and was echoed eerily by the enslaved witches who huddled in a circle about the device. The sound scratched at the edges of the observer’s enhanced hearing, before spiralling upwards into inaudible ranges beyond comprehension.

‘Cease.’ Electro-chargers that marked the points of the sensor array fell silent, the echoes slithering through the chamber. The witches slumped, chests heaving, eyes and noses bleeding. They were all still alive – progress, in contrast to the earlier attempts. But some were not much more than that.

The observer stalked towards the circle, the ferrule of his skull-headed sceptre tapping against the rusty deck plates, the fading light of the electro-chargers playing across the worn amethyst of his battleplate and the stretched faces stitched into the folds of the flesh-coat he wore over it. The long, segmented limbs of an ancient medicae harness, tipped by a nightmarish collection of bone-saws, scalpels and syringes, loomed over his head and shoulders.

Armoured fingers caught the sweaty scalp of one of the witches and jerked the slack-jawed psyker backwards. Blank eyes stared.

‘Damnation,’ Fabius Bile growled. This was the third such failure in as many hours. Biological data gathered by his power armour’s sensors spilled across the visual feed of his helmet. The unfortunate psyker had shallow respiration, a weak pulse and no signs of neurological activity. It was not dead yet, but it would be soon enough. Thus, it was no longer of any use, save that it could be processed into raw materials.

‘This one is finished. Bring another. Quickly.’ Fabius dragged the still-breathing husk upright and flung it aside, making room for its replacement. ‘Hurry,’ he reiterated, snapping his fingers. The mutants hastened to obey. They were twisted beasts, thick of muscle and brain. Many of them bore wounds – the marks of a ritual combat fought to decide who among their number would claim the honour of assisting Pater Mutatis in this experiment. The victors attended to him, while the losers contributed their bodies to his flesh-vats, there to be broken down into their component parts. Alive or dead, his creations had their uses.

Besides which, there were always more where they came from. The mouldering corridors of his Grand Apothecarium were home to more species than the average feral world. Some were of little use, except as chattel. But others had more specialised skills. The witches occupying the circle before him, for instance.

Introducing certain genetic flaws into a small percentage of the available abhuman population had shown commendable results. His servants harvested the resulting psykers with all due diligence, and quickly segregated them. Most were repurposed, their cerebral matter extracted and processed for scientific purposes. But others were trained, their given talents honed to precision.

Unfortunately, all the precision in the world could not make up for a lack of strength. Their minds, though powerful, rapidly broke against the barriers he had commanded that they hurl themselves at. Luckily, he had more.

As the grunting mutants stripped the rest of the brain-burnt psykers from the circle, Fabius stepped closer to the array and the crystalline fragments it contained. ‘Even dead, you seek to pit your will against mine,’ he murmured. ‘Intriguing, if frustrating. Yet even the dead can be made to spill their secrets. If I wished, I could grind you into a fine powder, mix it with organic matter taken from the appropriate sources and grow a new you. I could draw you up from your essential salts, like some savage genomancer of Old Night, but there is no telling what might be lost in such a crude process.’

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A Black Library Publication

Published in Great Britain in 2017 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Lie Setiawan.

Light of a Crystal Sun © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2017. Light of a Crystal Sun, 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: 978-1-78572-770-2

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.

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