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Mephiston: City of Light – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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Prologue

The Court of the One-Eyed King, Prospero

‘I saw clusters of stars,’ said the cyclops, gazing down from his throne. ‘Constellations that danced across the galactic plane, wrapped in motions and revolutions. I saw the crown of the celestial sphere. Nebulae swelled over me like waves, becoming the tides of the Great Ocean and I swam, drunk on the currents, until I woke into a dream.’

The cyclops’ halls were boundless and as mercurial as his words. Vortices of electricity spiralled around him forming great spheres of hieratic text, lightning cages that turned wildly and dragged his court closer, carrying magister and daemon alike to the rhythms of a beautiful hymn.

Zadkiel glided through the dazzling lights and ranks of silent Rubricae, shoving the colossal warriors aside with his crook staff, eager to reach his monarch.

The cyclops was Magnus the Red, the Crimson King, daemon primarch of the XV Legion and seer lord of the Thousand Sons. ‘Darkness drives evolution,’ he continued. ‘Darkness, doubt and fear. Paucity of understanding. The ultimate catalyst.’

Magnus billowed, rising on a thunderhead, towering over the drifting crowds, causing even his great captains, the Rehati, to stumble and shield their eyes. ‘When men first crawled from the earth and looked to the heavens, what did they see? They saw madness. How else could they have described it? What else could they have thought as they watched the sun, their god, sink behind the horizon? Their bright lord was abandoning them. Never to return. Their father had betrayed them. It was the death of light and the end of life. And when the dusk turned to true night, and our forebears witnessed the birth of stars, what must they have thought, confronted by such majesty? How could they explain the heavenly spheres? How could they rationalise the moon? What must they have done?’

He laughed, shimmering back down into his throne, shrinking until he was barely larger than his Adeptus Astartes attendants. ‘They would have asked questions. And sought answers. They would have felt the hunger that has always been in us. A hunger for knowledge. Even then, even in its earliest, crudest form, mankind must have sensed the apotheosis that lay ahead. They knew as we knew. As we have always known. We are not destined to cower in the dust, humbled by the cosmos – we are destined to conquer and rule. We are destined to understand, to understand everything. It is our divine right to be unshackled from ignorance and bathe in the light of reason. To deny that is the only real betrayal.

‘I have traversed the Great Ocean beyond the stars, I have crossed it countless times, exiled for doing what I was born to do, commanded to do, and after centuries beyond counting, I finally realised my true crimes. Not treachery. Not the study of forbidden lore. These things were not my failings. My failing was false humility. Lack of ambition. Denying my true nature. There is no shame in what I am. In what we are.’

The cyclops reared up again, his skin flushing a deeper red, veined with mutagenic power. ‘Never again will we apologise for what we are.’ His voice swelled to a roar and the hymn rose with it, blasting the translucid spheres of his throne room, spinning them on their axes, causing the assembled cults to reel and stagger. ‘We are the beginning of the beginning!’

As the hymn reached a crescendo, the throne room devolved into a maelstrom of colours. Lightning lashed against Zadkiel with such violence that he struggled to maintain physical form. He fell, blinded, gripping his crook staff like the mast of a listing ship. As always when threatened, his mind fell back on the old, habitual rites – the facile disciplines he learned before ascending to daemonhood. They called them enumerations, a millennium ago, back in the days of the Great Crusade. They were nothing more than psychological sleights of hand, designed to disguise the true scale of humankind’s potential. It had taken Magnus to show them the truth – that humanity must either sink, deep into the Great Ocean of the Empyrean, or be drowned by their own ignorance.

Zadkiel muttered the old mantra, the one he had learned in Tizca when he was still an acolyte – words to elevate his mind from the material plane. ‘We dream, dreaming, dreamed.’

The cyclops settled back in his throne and the spheres steadied, regaining physical form. The storm abated and the hymn dropped in volume. The Rubric Marines stood back to attention, gripping their bolters calmly as though nothing had happened, and the magisters resumed their conversations. They were all used to these impassioned speeches. Magnus argued constantly with an accuser who never answered.

Zadkiel pushed closer to the throne dais and saw Magnus clearly for the first time since entering the throne room. His chosen manner of appearance was still essentially humanoid. What made him choose such a façade? Was it nostalgia or irony? A daemon of such immense power was not bound by physics, nor any other rules of the materium. Magnus could assume whatever form he wished, but he chose this – a muscular, crimson-skinned warrior, clad in gilded armour. It was clearly not intended as a disguise. Magnus was not ashamed of his transformation. He made no attempt to hide the influence of the Great Ocean. Vast, iridescent wings shimmered behind him, wrought in turquoise and coral, the pigments so intense that no mortal could perceive them. His powerful legs ended in taloned claws and his brutal, noble, one-eyed head was crowned by enormous horns. Whatever future the Emperor had envisioned for Magnus had been surpassed. He was god-like. Magnificent. Wreathed in wisdom and light.

‘Your majesty!’ cried Zadkiel, shouldering his way through the final lines of Rubric Marines and approaching the circle of Rehati. The captains looked back at him, their faces cold and full of disdain. It was a long time since Zadkiel had come so close to the royal presence. In the ever-shifting hierarchy of pacts and allegiances Zadkiel was considered a failure, a relic of less certain times, cast from the light of the cyclops. Unlike the Rehati, who wore armour and robes almost as spectacular as Magnus’, Zadkiel wore the plain, unadorned habit of a mendicant priest. His expression would be impossible to read because there was no face under his hood, just the long, bleached beak of a raptor, but the excitement in his voice was unmistakable. He came with news. News that would change everything. ‘It is I!’ he announced. ‘Zadkiel!’

Magnus was staring at the spaces between the spheres and did not seem to hear Zadkiel’s cries. He raised his blade to catch the lightning, scattering branches of electricity as he turned the metal. The weapon’s form was as ephemeral as its wielder but at the moment it resembled a long-handled glaive, filigreed and gilded with the same incredible designs as the cyclops’ armour. He used it like an oar, disturbing currents and creating ripples.

Zadkiel could have caught Magnus’ attention through sorcery, but such an act would be an offence of the highest order. If he was patient, Magnus would eventually acknowledge his calls but Zadkiel had to share what he had learned quickly.

He tapped his crook staff on the nearest of the Rehati and the sorcerer turned to look back at Zadkiel. He was dressed in beautiful robes and leaning on a serpent-headed staff.

Zadkiel pretended he was going to barge past him.

‘You have been gone too long,’ said the sorcerer, barring his way. ‘Everything has changed. The Red Monarch no longer has time for your quixotic tales.’

‘Magister Saros,’ replied Zadkiel, peering through the sorcerer’s golden mask and into his soul. However skilled Saros was, he had not yet shed the bonds of his humanity. He had not ascended. Not as Zadkiel had. His mind was as easy to read as the cuneiform on his battleplate. Paranoia seeped out of him like pus from an infected wound.

‘There is time enough for me,’ said Zadkiel, ‘but perhaps not for you. You should rush home to congratulate your acolyte.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Saros tried to sound dismissive but he could not entirely hide his concern. Zadkiel had been politicked out of the Rehati centuries ago, after falling from Magnus’ favour, but he had monitored them from afar, tracking their victories and defeats, learning everything he could about their weaknesses and their desires. The desires were all the same – power to rule in Magnus’ name and literal power, siphoned from the tides of the Great Ocean. But their weaknesses were endlessly unique.

Shapes rippled beneath Zadkiel’s robes as he shrugged his knife-edge shoulders. ‘Magister Lyræ is doing great work in your absence, Magister Saros. While you have been here on Prospero, Lyræ has been working hard back in Tizca. Your acolyte has uncovered the Library of Azariah. And he has wasted no time in deciphering its most famous text, The Canticles of Ahriman. From what I hear, he has already mastered the twelfth canticle and begun work on the thirteenth.’

He reached up and draped a writhing nest of fingers over Saros’ shoulder. ‘You can be proud. Very proud. Magister Lyræ has surpassed the meagre learnings you shared with him and tackled more elevated subjects. I imagine he will be keen to share what he’s found with you.’ He shrugged again. ‘Or perhaps, if he has gone so far into regions you could not comprehend, he will need to talk directly with the Red Monarch himself.’

Saros shook his head. He leant close and hissed through the mouth grille of his helmet. ‘Liar. No truth has ever passed your lips. How could Lyræ have discovered The Canticles of Ahriman? How could he understand what even Ahriman could not?’

As the sorcerer gripped Zadkiel’s robes tighter, the colours in the throne room boiled, flashing in response to Saros’ anger. The hymn faltered as Saros broke ranks, throwing the music into disarray.

‘Perhaps I should have consulted you before helping him?’ Zadkiel spoke quietly, as though genuinely contrite. ‘I hope I have not committed some kind of transgression by sharing what I knew? Magister Lyræ is only working on your behalf, after all. If he were able to reverse Ahriman’s rubric it would reflect well on you. Magister Lyræ only wishes to further your glory.’

Zadkiel knew this was not true. Saros’ acolyte would take any chance to usurp his master, and this threat was the perfect bait with which to hook Magister Saros. Every member of the court dreamed of somehow reversing the rubric that turned Magnus’ Legion into automatons. It would be the ultimate gift. But Zadkiel knew it was a fool’s errand. The rubric would never be reversed. The only way to win the Crimson King’s favour would be to forge him a new army, even greater than the old one.

The storm around Saros flashed white, brilliant with panic, causing the rest of the Rehati to stumble and break the circle, lowering staffs and glaives and turning to see the cause of the interruption.

‘You are a liar!’ cried Saros, grabbing Zadkiel by the throat and trying to shove him backwards.

There were no bones inside Zadkiel’s robes. He had surpassed the need for mortal flesh. The bird skull in his hood was carried by knots of serpents and even they were only ghosts, collapsing and dissolving as Saros tried to grip them.

Saros howled in annoyance and raised his other hand, summoning a fistful of empyric power. Other members of the Rehati broke ranks and crossed the dais, the song devolving into a discordant jumble.

‘Wait.’ Magnus’ voice echoed through the spheres, causing everyone to halt and fall silent. He lowered his blade and stared at Zadkiel.

Zadkiel realised his mistake. The cyclops had not shrunk to human size. The ever-changing lights of the throne room had confused him. Magnus was a colossus. As he leant forwards to study Zadkiel, he felt like an insect being examined under a lens.

‘The Vulture.’ Magnus’ voice reverberated in the skulls of everyone present. Some of the lesser sorcerers stumbled and clutched the faceplates of their helmets.

‘Your majesty,’ said Zadkiel, freeing himself from Saros and bowing low, before scurrying across the dais towards the throne, earning bitter glances from the Rehati. As he approached the daemon primarch, the scale of the being grew more bewildering. ‘I bring news,’ he said, willing the serpents beneath his robes back into a human shape, ‘from the far side of the Great Rift.’

Magnus looked down at him, flames rippling across his enormous, blood-drop eye.

‘You came to tell me of the warp?’ Magnus’ tone was neutral, but Zadkiel knew he was as likely to extinguish him as listen to his reply.

‘Not of the warp, your majesty,’ he said, being deliberately elliptical, hoping to pique his regent’s interest.

The throne room was still, the ranks of Rubricae and Rehati watching in silence. Magnus nodded for Zadkiel to continue.

‘I speak of the Dark Imperium, your majesty. The regions called Imperium Nihilus by the cults of the False Emperor. I speak of the Baal System.’

‘Baal? That arid rock? Is that where you have been hiding yourself while my Great Work nears its completion?’ Magnus waved his blade and the walls of the throne room fell away, revealing the tormented landscape miles below them. Much of Prospero was still charred, a vitrified wasteland, as it had been for ten thousand years, but it was alive with industry. Every withered peak and scarred gulf was crowded with construction sites – barracks and weapons batteries, armouries and manufactoria, as well as huge temples to house the cyclops’ libraries. Magnus was rebuilding the Thousand Sons’ home, long ages after it was destroyed by the Wolves of Russ. But he was not rebuilding it as it was before the fall. There were no gilded spires or crystal pyramids. Prospero would be an anvil, designed to hammer out the tools of war.

As Magnus admired his work, Zadkiel sensed that he was no longer addressing his audience but himself. ‘Ascension is upon us. The Terran corpse has forgotten his great vision but I have not. I will bring the light of knowledge to his children. I will raise them from shameful ignorance. I will elevate them.’ He looked down to the nadir of one of the spheres. ‘I will enlighten them.’

Zadkiel followed his gaze and saw a knot of wasted figures, shackled to the sphere by cords of coruscating light. Their bodies were blackened and broken, but they were alive, twitching in agony as their life-force fuelled the rituals that powered the throne room. There were similar clusters at the base of all the spheres, tormented souls doomed never to die. Ornate pipes had been jammed into their gaping mouths, capturing their screams and transforming them into the beautiful hymn that was billowing around the spheres. Zadkiel saw no irony in Magnus talking of saving humanity while his throne room was fuelled by their death throes. Ascension was for the few, not the many. When the New Kingdom came, it would be for worthy souls. Not the wretched, ungifted masses.

‘I will help you enlighten them, majesty,’ said Zadkiel, stepping closer, raising his crook staff.

Magnus laughed. There was no cruelty or artifice in the sound. It was deep and unreserved and it reminded Zadkiel of simpler times – when he marched at the Crimson King’s side, both of them still physical beings, prosecuting the Emperor’s vainglorious Great Crusade.

‘Zadkiel the Vulture means to help me.’ Magnus looked at the circle of Rehati. They laughed, hesitantly. ‘I am on the cusp of reclaiming all that we have lost,’ continued Magnus, ‘and the Vulture tells me he can help. Pray how, old friend? How will you help me?’

‘Ascension has begun,’ said Zadkiel, speaking quickly, ‘as you so rightly claim, your majesty. Everywhere, the human mind is blossoming. The new is diverging from the old. The weak is growing strong. The spirit is divesting itself of the flesh. And it is happening in every corner of the galaxy. But it is slow. Slower than we need. All who are worthy of you will find their way here, but so will the Corpse Emperor’s fleet. You have already been attacked and it will happen again. Mankind is changing, yes, but not fast enough.’

Magnus’ laughter died and he slumped back in his throne, a mountain of muscle and contempt. ‘What do you wish to tell me, Vulture? What do you propose?’

Zadkiel abandoned the elaborate preamble he had prepared and said, simply: ‘The Nine Sacraments.’

Magnus laughed again, but it was no longer a happy sound. He waved a dismissive hand.

‘I have found a way,’ said Zadkiel before Magnus could speak. ‘It is possible.’

Lights flickered between the spheres, making the wretches fuelling them stiffen and twist. Magnus gripped his glaive tighter and glared at Zadkiel. It was a look that would have disintegrated a mortal but Zadkiel weathered it in silence.

‘Do you think there is any rite you can tell me about that I do not know? Do you think I have not thought of the Sacraments? That rite is hungry, Vulture. Hungrier than you. Each third of the ritual would require the psychic resonance of…’ He shrugged and nodded at the Rehati. ‘Well, of something far greater than I have to hand.’

‘I have discovered a Threefold Soul,’ said Zadkiel, sure that this statement would finally convince Magnus to hear him out. ‘Amongst the sons of your dead brother, Sanguinius. In their fortress-monastery. A warrior-scholar whose links to the Great Ocean are stronger than anything I have ever heard of. He was reborn after death and remade, resurrected by an unknown power. And now he has survived a third birth, tortured into a new form by the priests of Mars. He has been given a unique, triad soul. There are fragments of Sanguinius in each piece – echoes.’

‘All Sanguinius’ sons carry an echo of his curse.’

‘This is different. It is more than just the Chapter’s gene-seed. There is a shadow in him – the same shadow that was in Sanguinius, but it has been made manifest. He has been born three times and his third birth has made him uniquely potent, uniquely suitable for the Nine Sacraments. I have devised a way to lever his pieces apart – to break him into the stimulus we need.’

Magnus studied Zadkiel closely. ‘Are you referring to the Chapter Master? Dante?’

‘No. A Librarian. Their Chief Librarian, Mephiston.’

‘And to split this Librarian in three you would harness the power of nine talismans? Nine sites of geomantic power? Places of great importance and potency?’ A terrifying edge crept into Magnus’ voice. ‘Places that are crucial to my plans. Sites that could be destroyed if your ritual failed.’

‘It would not fail. I have followed Mephiston for centuries, preparing him for this moment. Every action he has taken was conceived of by me. He is my puppet. Even his subordinates are implements of my will. All of their auguries are echoes of my plans.’

Magnus fell silent again but he was still watching Zadkiel. Zadkiel sensed that he had said enough. The cyclops was intrigued.

Magnus thought for a while. Then he turned to the Rehati. ‘Take the Vulture back to Sortiarius. Find the deepest pit in Tizca and imprison him. Use your most powerful binding rituals. His travels have unhinged him. He may do us harm.’

Zadkiel tried to speak but Magnus silenced him with a thought. ‘You need not thank me for my mercy,’ said the cyclops. ‘I have spared your life for good reason.’ There was kindness in his tone. ‘You think I have forgotten you but I have not. I remember what you did when the Wolves were loose on this world. I remember how you stood by my side. And I know your current lunacy only stems from a desire to serve.’

Magnus rose from his throne, his monolithic form dissecting the light and casting a mantle around him. ‘Ascension is at hand. Soon, we shall all see clearly. Even you, Zadkiel.’

Zadkiel tried again to speak but his voice was muted. The Rehati raised swords and staffs, snatching wychfire from the air and hurling it towards him. The burned slaves screamed in fresh agony, their cries transformed into a beautiful chorus as new spheres rose from the tumult, spinning around Zadkiel. Through the turning lights he saw the throne room disintegrate, replaced by a tormented hellscape – knotted, bestial towers and leviathan tusks silhouetted against a kaleidoscope sky.

Zadkiel howled as they sent him home, back to the Planet of the Sorcerers.

Click here to buy Mephiston: City of Light.

A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2019.
This eBook edition published in 2019 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by K D Stanton.

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For my brother in blood, Guy Haley. Fangs for the help, chap.

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