Camille saw a shadow flicker on Lemuel’s face at the mention of his wife, and wondered if she had been the woman in her vision. Intuition that had nothing to do with her gift kept her from asking.
“I think it might be made of the same substance those giants are made of,” she said. “What was it you called them, Syrbotae?”
“Yes, Syrbotae,” he said, “giants amongst men, like our grand host.”
Camille smiled, remembering that first sight of Magnus the Red as he emerged from the cave on the Mountain. What magnificent visions would fill her head were she to touch the Crimson King? The thought terrified and exhilarated her.
“He was magnificent, wasn’t he?”
“Impressive, yes,” agreed Lemuel. “I think you might be right about that disc. It certainly looks like the same material, but I’d have a hard time believing anything that big could be grown.”
“I suppose,” she said. “Do you think the Aghoru would allow us to study the giants?”
“I don’t know, maybe. You can ask.”
“I think I will,” said Camille. “I have a feeling there’s more to them than meets the eye.”
Camille looked back towards the Aghoru village as a personal speeder in the red and ivory of the Thousand Sons skimmed towards the dig site from the village. Wide and disc-shaped, the speeder floated low to the ground, leaving a puffed trail of ionised dust in its wake. Riding the speeder like a floating chariot of antiquity was a single Astartes warrior.
“A friend of yours?” asked Lemuel.
“Yes, actually,” replied Camille, as the skimmer drifted to a halt beside her and Lemuel.
The warrior removed his golden helmet, a gesture few others of the Legion bothered with, forgetting that mortals could not so easily tell them apart while they were clad in battle-plate.
His hair was a salt and pepper mix of grey and auburn, worn in long braids, and his face was deeply lined, as if his scholarly mien had somehow aged his ageless physiology. His skin had been pale when Camille had first met him, but like the rest of his battle-brothers, he was now the colour of burnt umber.
His armour was dusty from travel in the open, the small raven symbol faded and almost unnoticed in the centre of the serpentine star symbol of the Thousand Sons.
“Good day, Mistress Shivani,” said the Astartes, his voice hoary and brusque. “How go your excavations?”
“Very well indeed, my Lord Anen,” said Camille. “There are lots of new artefacts and almost as many wild theories to explain them. I’ve also found some more writings that might help us with the inscriptions on the deadstones.”
“I look forward to studying them,” said the warrior, and his sincerity was genuine.
The limited number of remembrancers attached to the 28th Expedition had met with resistance amongst the Legion of Magnus, but Ankhu Anen had been a rare exception. He had willingly travelled with Camille to various sites around the mountain, both near and far, sharing her passion for the past and what could be learned from it.
His eyes moved to Lemuel, and Camille said, “This is my friend, Lemuel Gaumon, he’s helping me out with my wild theorising. Lemuel, this is Ankhu Anen.”
“The Guardian of the Great Library,” said Lemuel, extending his hand. “It is an honour to meet you at last. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
The Astartes slowly extended his hand and took Lemuel’s. Ankhu Anen’s gauntlet easily swallowed Lemuel’s hand, and Camille felt a flush of unease prickle her skin. A crackling tension fizzled between Lemuel and Ankhu Anen, as though the air between them had suddenly become charged with electricity.
“Have you indeed?” said Ankhu Anen. “I have, likewise, heard a great deal of you.”
“You have?” asked Lemuel, and Camille could tell he was surprised. “I didn’t think the Thousand Sons paid us poor remembrancers much mind.”
“Just the ones that interest us,” replied Anen.
“I’m flattered,” replied Lemuel, “Then might I ask if you have read any of my papers?”
“No,” said Ankhu Anen, as though to have done so would be a waste of time. “I have not.”
“Oh,” said Lemuel, crestfallen, “well, perhaps I might offer you a selection of my works to read sometime. Though I claim no great insight, you might find some sections of interest, particularly the passages detailing the growth of society after the compliance of Twenty-Eight Fifteen.”
“Perhaps,” said the Astartes, “but I am not here to gather reading material, I am here to bring you a summons.”
“A summons? From whom?” asked Lemuel.
Ankhu Anen smiled.
“From Lord Ahriman,” he said.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Probationer/Creation Myths/Memories of Terra
THE INTERIOR OF Ahriman’s pavilion was his place of calm. Spacious and well-aired, it was a refuge from the heat of Aghoru. A walnut bookcase sat beside his bedroll, the books on its shelves like old friends, well-thumbed and read countless times, as much for their familiarity as their words.
A battered copy of Akkadian Literary Formssat alongside a translated copy of the Voynich Manuscriptand the Codex Seraphinianus. The Turba Philosophorumjostled for space with five of the seven cryptical Books of Hzanand the Clavis Solomoni, together with assorted other texts that would not attract unwelcome attention. But had anyone unlocked the hidden compartments secreted within the body of the bookcase, they would have found far more provocative tomes.
Thuribles hung from sandalwood rafters, and a brazier of green flame burned at the heart of the pavilion. Ahriman breathed in the heady mix of aromas, letting their calming influence ease his passage into the lower Enumerations. He stared into the flames and directed his will along the currents of the aether.
The future was mist and shadow, a blurred fog through which no meaning could penetrate. In decades past, fractured timelines had shone through the veil of the empyrean, and Ahriman had seen the echoes of futures yet to come as easily as a mortal man could guess what might happen were he to step off a cliff.
The tides of the Great Ocean were a mystery to him, as unknowable as the far side of the world was to mariners of old. Ahriman felt his concentration slipping, his frustration at his inability to divine the future threatening to overcome his control. Concentration was the key that unlocked all doors, lying at the heart of every practice of the Thousand Sons, and the means by which the greater mysteries could be unravelled.
Angry with himself, Ahriman shook his head and opened his eyes, uncrossing his legs and rising in one smooth motion. Dressed in crimson robes and a wide leather belt, from which hung a set of bronze keys, he had foregone his armour for this meeting.
Sobek stood by the entrance to his pavilion, clad in his ruby plates of armour, and Ahriman felt his disapproval.
“Speak,” commanded Ahriman. “Your aura wears at me. Speak and be done with it.”
“May I speak freely, my lord?”
“I just said you could,” snapped Ahriman, forcing himself to calm. “You are my Practicus, and if there is no candour between us you will never achieve the rank of Philosophus.”
“It galls me to see you punished thus,” said Sobek. “To be forced to train a mortal in the mysteries is no task for one such as you.”
“Punished?” asked Ahriman. “Is that what you think this is, punishment?”
“What else could it be?”
“The primarch has entrusted me with a great task, and this is but the first stage of it,” said Ahriman. “Lemuel Gaumon is mortal and he has a little knowledge and a little power.”
Sobek snorted in derision and said, “That’s nothing unusual in the 28th Expedition.” Ahriman smiled.
“True,” he said, “but he is a child taking his first steps, unaware that he walks blindfold along the edge of an abyss. I am to help him to remove that blindfold.”