EPILOGUE

Fallen Angels

Zahariel awoke to find the face of death staring down at him.

'Do not move,' Brother Attias said in his hollow voice. 'You sustained severe injuries to much of your body during the battle. By rights you shouldn't be alive at all.'

The Librarian forced himself to relax and heed Attias's warning. His mind swam with images and sensations, as though all of his sensory organs had been shattered and crudely reassembled later. It took him several long moments to recognise the feel of cold sunlight against his face and the weight of cotton sheets against his chest and legs.

He looked around, moving only his eyes, and tried to make sense of where he was. Stone walls, and an arched viewport by his bed. Spartan furnishings: a desk and chair, and a chest for storing clothing. He saw a staff resting stop the chest, and belatedly realised that it was his. Was the room his as well?

'Where…' he croaked. The sound of his voice surprised him. It sounded strange, somehow, but he persisted. 'Where… am… I?'

'Aldurukh, in the Tower of Angels,' Attias replied. 'Luther had you moved up here once the Apothecaries said your vital signs had stabilised. You were dead for a full five minutes before Luther was able to get one of your hearts beating again. No one knows exactly how he did it. It was something he read out of the book he took down into the core with him; that much I saw with my own eyes. Even still, you've been lying here for a long time in a deep coma, healing the damage you suffered.'

'How… long?' Zahariel asked.

'Eight months,' the Astartes said. 'I think everyone else but me has forgotten you're up here.'

Eight months, Zahariel thought. The number seemed significant, but he couldn't quite remember why. Fragmentary images tumbled through his mind; he tried to grasp at them, but the more he tried to hold them, the quicker they faded away. 'I was… dreaming,' he said.

Attias nodded. 'I expect so.' He stepped around the end of the bed, heading for the room's narrow door. 'I'll go and tell the Master Apothecary you're awake, and bring you some food from the kitchen. No doubt you're ravenous after being so long asleep.'

The skull-faced Astartes slipped quietly from the room. Zahariel stared up at the ceiling. 'Ravenous,' he echoed. Yes. He certainly was.

Faces came and went. Attias brought him food, which he ate when the need arose. He rested, moving as little as possible, and sorted through the broken images in his mind. The Master Apothecary visited often, asking many questions for which he had few answers. At night he dreamed. Sometimes he would awake in the darkness and find a hooded figure staring at him from beside the open doorway. Unlike the others, the figure had nothing to say.

Slowly but surely, he began to fit the pieces of his mind back into place. His speech returned, then his muscle control. When Luther finally came to visit him he was sitting upright, staring out the narrow viewport at the sky.

The Master of Caliban studied him silently for a time.

'How are you feeling, brother?' he asked.

Zahariel considered the question. 'Mended,' he said at last.

'I'm glad to hear it,' Luther said. 'It's been many months, and there's a great deal of work left undone.'

'What's happened?' Zahariel asked. He shifted about, turning to face Luther.

Luther folded his arms across his chest and pursed his lips thoughtfully. 'Order has been restored,' he said. 'Once we banished the warp entity, its undead servants fell inert, just as they had at Sigma Five-One-Seven. After that, we were able to finish the evacuation and resettle the citizens across the upper levels of the arcology. The Northwilds have been quiet ever since, though maintenance crews are still stumbling across skeletal remains down in the sub-levels.'

'And the rebellion?'

Luther shrugged. 'There is no rebellion. It effectively ended in the library, when the Emperor's lies were finally brought to light. By the end of the riots at the Northwilds, it became apparent that Master Remiel was the only member of the rebel leadership still alive. Lord Thuriel and Lord Malchial were slain sometime during the day - not by the undead, but apparently by some of Lady Alera's people. Alas, we'll likely never know for certain, because Alera died leading a search party into the sub-levels to try and locate the Terran sorcerers.'

'I'm sorry to hear that,' Zahariel replied. 'What about the Terrans?'

'We've rounded up nearly all of them,' Luther said. 'Most submitted quietly, but General Morten and a number of his men managed to evade arrest and are running loose in the countryside. We'll track them down sooner or later, I'm sure. Honestly, we've got more important things to attend to at this point.'

'Such as?'

Luther smiled coldly. 'Such as securing Caliban's freedom from the Imperium.'

Zahariel shook his head. 'That's not possible,' he said tiredly. 'Surely you realise that. No matter what we do, at the end of the day we're just one world. Sooner or later Terra will learn of what we've done, and then there will be a reckoning.'

'Perhaps, and perhaps not,' Luther said. 'We've received news from the Ultima Segmentum. The Warmaster Horus has rebelled against the Emperor. Dozens of star systems are following his example and throwing off the yoke of the Imperium, and that, I believe, is just the beginning. The Emperor has much more to worry about than Caliban at this point. Now it falls to us to make the most of the time we've been given.'

Zahariel's eyes narrowed. 'In what way?' he asked, even though he already knew the answer.

'Why, to master the secrets that the Emperor has tried to conceal from us,' Luther said. 'The library here at the Rock is only the beginning, brother. We've only scratched the surface of what's out there.'

He stepped forward, kneeling at the side of the bed, and stared searchingly into Zahariel's eyes. 'What do you remember of the ritual, back at the arcology?'

'Why, all of it,' Zahariel answered. He remembered the pillar of flame, the bridge between the physical realm and the warp. He remembered the entity, and how it had sunk talons of ice into his soul.

Luther leaned forward, as though he could plumb the depths of Zahariel's eyes. 'Do you remember learning the entity's name? Its true name?'

Zahariel never flinched from Luther's gaze. Slowly, he shook his head. 'No,' he replied. 'I'm sorry. I tried, but it was far too powerful for me to command.'

Luther sighed, and slowly rose to his feet. 'Well, it was worth a try,' he said, disappointment evident in his voice. He smiled. 'Perhaps next time.'

'Next time?'

'When you're stronger, of course,' Luther added quickly. 'I admit, I underestimated the entity's power as well. Next time, we'll be better prepared. You have my oath on it.'

He reached forward and patted Zahariel's shoulder. 'I've troubled you enough for one day,' he said. 'Get some rest, regain your strength. When you're ready we'll return to the library and start our research.' The Master of Caliban took his leave, striding for the doorway. At the threshold he turned and gave Zahariel a proud smile. 'Caliban is on the verge of a golden age unlike any our ancestors dreamed of, brother. You and I are going to make it possible.'

Zahariel listened to Luther's footsteps recede down the stairs. Silence returned to the tower room once more. He rose carefully from the bed and stepped to the centre of the room. He raised his arms over his head, staring up at the ceiling and began to slowly, deliberately stretch his long-unused muscles. When he'd finished his stretches he began a careful series of calisthenics.