Luther first of the fall.., p.11
Luther: First of the Fallen, page 11
‘Your will is more solid than the foundations of the Rock,’ said a voice, making him flinch.
A Space Marine stood at the doorway, armoured in bone white, a black robe over the powered suit. He was bald, the nose thin and long, the lips fuller than Luther was used to seeing in his captors. He wondered if it had been his mania that had made the others look more akin to the Lion. Had he imposed his gain-brother’s features onto his tormentors, or had the gene-seed that had run in the veins of the Dark Angels finally withered?
The Space Marine held a large cup in his hands and approached, putting it on the floor in front of Luther. The contents were clear.
‘Water,’ the Space Marine said.
‘Rock? What rock?’ Luther whispered.
‘Hmm?’ The Space Marine was taken aback by the question. With a broad wave of his arm he indicated everything around them. ‘This place. This fortress-monastery. We call it the Rock.’
‘It is a piece of Aldurukh, the only remnant of Caliban, I was told.’
‘The only piece large enough to be worth keeping,’ the man said. He nodded towards the cup. ‘Drink.’
‘The Imperium will burn,’ Luther said, picking up the water. ‘A madness will break it.’
‘It has already begun,’ the Space Marine said sadly. ‘The great Church of the Emperor seeks dominion over all, yet worship is fractured and factions vie among themselves. A demagogue rules Terra in the Emperor’s name, gathering ever greater power to himself. It has shone an unpleasant light on our own actions these last centuries. Even now, there are many among the Chapter that think we should pick one denomination or other to support.’
‘The Church of the Emperor? You made Him a god?’
‘We did nothing,’ he said harshly. ‘The rise of the Adeptus Ministorum has been millennia in the making. It is not for the Space Marines to dictate to the High Lords how they organise the Imperium, but when the Ecclesiarch is also the Lord of the Administratum that is too much power in the hands of one individual.’
‘You do not believe the Emperor is a god? Perhaps you should.’
‘We are relearning our faith, to put it into a different perspective. Our bonds to the Emperor are stronger than idolatry and a few sermons.’
Luther drank the water, smarting at its coldness in his ravaged mouth.
‘Thank you,’ he said, placing the cup exactly where it had been put before him. ‘What is your name?’
‘Tatraziel.’
‘Why do you treat me differently? Do you not think I will repent?’
‘I think the Supreme Grand Masters have spent too much time and effort on a broken, insane old man,’ Tatraziel replied with a sorrowful shake of the head. ‘Your confession is meaningless to me. It will not save one Dark Angel, nor bring one Fallen back from damnation.’
‘Not even my damnation?’
‘You are living your damnation, are you not?’
Luther bowed his head and said nothing, feeling the weight of the pronouncement heavy on his tortured frame.
‘If you wish the Lion’s forgiveness, you must earn it.’
Luther looked up, startled. He jumped to his feet, wincing as the stitches in his flesh pulled tight.
‘The Lion lives? I told you! I told them all! Where is he?’
‘I do not know if the Lion lives or has been dead these last five thousand years. He is gone, and has not returned. Too long we have wondered too much on the future and what might be, letting the present go astray. We overreached, as a Chapter and with you.’
‘What did you mean when you said I have to earn the forgiveness of the Lion?’ Luther’s stomach cramped painfully, almost buckling him at the knees. He straightened, face twisted with discomfort. ‘The water sits poorly in an empty stomach.’
‘You have been too long starved, even for your altered physiology. I will bring a little food when we are done.’
‘Why do you speak of the Lion’s forgiveness?’
‘Has it not occurred to you that perhaps you need to prove to the Lion that you repent of your deeds? Offer up those that strayed with you into the darkness and you will bring them and yourself back into the light.’
‘Dark and light? Is your outlook so binary, Tatraziel of the Dark Angels?’
‘Oh, I know the world of grey very well. People like you have dragged me into that realm between the moral and immoral. Now I find I must be a pragmatist, to be the bastion of reason when superstition and the madness of blind faith consumes others. You will help me or you will rot here. The Watchers will keep the stasis lifted and you will slowly die. Only when you are on the verge of expiring will they stop the flow of time again. So, I ask you, do you want to live out your damnation as you are now, or as a frail near-corpse?’
‘You are just as vile as the others. Viler, for your civility and subtlety.’
‘There is a renegade priest, Bucharis, who has taken rule of many, many worlds for himself, a rival to the Ecclesiarch of Terra. His sermons drag billions into false worship, fleets and armies serve his wishes above those of the High Lords. Our Librarians have discovered that one of his advisors is a follower of yours, named Machius.’
‘Machius? That does not sound like a Calibanite name to me. I do not think he was of the Order.’
‘He is listed in the manifests as a warrior of Caliban at the time of the Lion’s return.’
‘Many thousands were, but I cannot name them all.’ Luther touched his nail-less fingers with the tips of his thumbs, feeling the rough skin, the scabbed blood. ‘You can kill as many messengers as you like, it does not stop the message.’
‘What does that mean? Is that a threat?’ Tatraziel loomed closer.
Luther shook his head.
‘We had no gods or priests on Caliban. We took moral guidance from the old tales and our lords, and recreated the deeds of the best with our own lives.’
The greatest test of a knight was the quest. We were a martial people and for all that we treasured knowledge and lauded wisdom, a man or woman who took up arms was judged on that merit. If one wanted to be a carpenter or wainwright or incendriast, one would be apprenticed and submit a work for consideration to the master. So too the knightly route, save we called the youth a squire and the master sar, or mistress sarl. The masterpiece that would be judged was the slaying of a beast. Not any creature of the forests but a quest beast. A Great Beast.
Not all Great Beasts were the size of buildings and needed a squadron of knights to kill. Most were not, though they were no less a threat because of their smaller size. Nobody travelled alone. Caravans between settlements would transport goods and people, traversing the forests under the protection of a lord’s knights or a troop of Wandered hired for the purpose. Livestock were raised in high-walled pastures, and messages sent by trained bird rather than herald.
It is better to think of the forests of Caliban as a treacherous sea, and the castles and forts of the people as islands among the green tides. Each stood alone, aware of its neighbours, communicating from afar but rarely interacting. Disputes over boundaries came about often simply because the shifting forest made measuring any meaningful territory almost impossible, so that bands of rivals would usually encounter each other only by mistake. Such skirmishes were brief and often resolved by contest of arms rather than actual battle to the death – knights were bound to one another even across settlements and to shed blood other than in the direct protection of one’s liege or their servants was frowned upon. Of course, there were some bloodthirsty warriors and rulers, but they were the exception.
There were also a few lords that laid claim to larger areas, with subservient settlements about their townships, but for the most part the effort of policing and protecting these extended kingdoms was greater than the benefit. Nearly all such conquerors were vain men and women, beguiled by the tales of the dead kings from Old Night, who thought to unite several knightly realms beneath their banner. Such would-be monarchs were generally held in suspicion and almost always came to a bad end, whether by overstepping their authority and igniting revolution or by stoking the ambitions of more capable rivals.
Yet even a lord of such standing, whose realm stretched from dusk to dawn, could not credibly lay claim to reign over anything more than a kilometre and a half from any wall upon which they might stand. The forest ruled itself, and if it was a lord, the Great Beasts were its knights – hunters and protectors that would strike down those that crossed into their kingdom.
If there was one common factor across every settlement on Caliban, from the smallest hamlet to mighty Aldurukh, it was the ingrained respect and fear of the forest. From their earliest years, every Calibanite learned that the woods were death. Childhood tales abounded of those young rogues that wandered from the protection of their homes and met all manner of grisly ends. On Caliban there were no wandering foresters or hunters that would pluck the wayward child to safety at the last instant.
Which is to say that a quest was a remarkable thing. A knight would willingly ride into the forests to seek a quest beast. Sometimes they would find a trail to follow; more often they would travel from settlement to settlement, seeking news of a suitable quarry. Some quests took weeks, many lasted for a season and more. The most legendary quests lasted years, the knights that completed them returning as if from beyond the veil of death.
For there was another kind of tale we listened to as children, and like many others I am sure I paid more heed to these. They were the stories of the bravest knights of history, and the strange arboromancers, chanters, wood dragons and forest spirits they encountered. From within the high walls of Aldurukh, it was easy to dismiss the stories of boys and girls lost on trails to nowhere and remember instead Sar Candred who slew a dozen-headed snake, or the trials of Alistar of Nubrook and his encounter with the Sorcerarch of the Meadows. This was before I was sent to Storrock and witnessed the Horn of Ruin and other horrors. Between them these tales painted a picture of a realm replete with dangerous magic and fabulous glory – for it was always renown the hero gained, far more desirable than any coin or gems.
I was fourteen when I announced I would ride my quest. It was a precociously young age to do so, though my mother and father supported me without criticism. When I later became Grand Master and the Lion fought at my side, we changed recruitment to the Order to cope with the demands of those youngsters that wished to join us, but back then the only children raised within Aldurukh were born to parents that lived there, like I was.
We found it was more efficient to train adolescents as I had been trained, rather than rely on the vagaries of application from across Caliban, but I wonder if in trying to recreate my own remarkable rise we lost authenticity somewhere along the way. And even as I think of it, it seems to me that perhaps the Lion ordered things in a way that made it easier for us to be subsumed into the Legion when it arrived. Not consciously, but perhaps something of the creation of a legionary was imprinted in the primarch that pushed him to recommend our new recruitment practice.
But that was later. My master, Sar Elegor, thought me skilled enough, though raised question of my temperament. He spoke to me as we readied our destriers in the outer stable block. The spring tourney was due to start within the month and Sar Elegor had been drilling me and Accadis on the training fields.
‘’Tis no jaunt you are taking. You will leave Aldurukh and renounce everything that you have. All claims to title, rank and family are left at the gates. You can only return two ways. With the head of a quest beast…’
‘Or as bones found in the wilds,’ I finished with a laugh. ‘I know well the tradition, Sar Elegor. I am ready, I swear it.’
‘Perhaps you are, but there is no rush,’ said Elegor.
‘Winter has faded, summer will come swiftly,’ I replied, cinching the broad belt about Accadis’ girth. She turned her head to look at me, encouraging me to pull it tighter still. I did so. ‘If I do not set out this year, I have only two seasons left before I depart to my gain-family.’
‘So? They will be just as proud of you undertaking a quest as your birth parents.’
‘But I want to quest as a squire of the Order,’ I told him. I had not confided this before and he raised his eyebrows in doubt, so I explained. ‘I know that none are born to the Order, but it would feel different if I were to bring back my quest prize to a place that was not Aldurukh.’
I could tell by his askance gaze that he thought this a vanity, so I continued.
‘Not for my glory, but for the glory of the Order. I would set the head of the beast on the steps of the Angelicasta and make my oaths of knighthood to the Grand Master. Then, should I not prove worthy enough to return when I am an adult, at least my debt for raising me would have been paid.’
Elegor laughed, deeply and long, and slapped me on the shoulder so hard that he would have knocked me sprawling had I not been wearing my powered battle harness.
‘I swear by the old glades that you are a dream, Luther,’ he exclaimed. ‘A more attentive student at arms I could not ask for. There is no manual of bladework, gunnery or tactics that you have not scrutinised to the smallest degree. In battlecraft, riding and hunting you are one of the finest squires to have graced the yards of Aldurukh.’
‘So why do you laugh at me?’ I asked.
‘Any other boy or girl with your gifts might be accused of arrogance, in presuming that you can quest when so young. But you? You do it because you think you might not be worthy of coming back to the Order! You want to set out into the woods as a mere strip of a knight so that you can show your gratitude to the lord of Aldurukh!’
I saw then why he was amazed. I had thought nothing of my motives before, knowing only a restlessness that drove me to strive for each new achievement. I had seen the manner of warriors that had entreated the lord to be recruited to the Order and not found favour, and not one of them had been a coward or slouch. I said as much to my master.
‘Nothing is certain, Luther, that is true,’ he said, now laying a far gentler hand upon my shoulder as he spoke. ‘The Grand Master does not permit gambling, but if I was of a mind to make wager, I would bet my armour, my steed, my quarters and my sword arm that you will come back to us as one of the most accomplished knights ever. Not because you deserve it, or some nonsense about destiny that I hear the others mutter, but because there is not another soul I know who would do more to earn that right.’
I was humbled by his words, and grateful, and nodded to show that I understood.
‘Thank you,’ I told him. ‘But you know that I still mean to set off on my quest the day after the tourney is finished?’
‘Of course you do,’ Sar Elegor replied.
Which is what I did, having won laurels in four of the five events of the tourney, including Lord’s Champion at the bolt gallery.
It is hard to describe the atmosphere that surrounds a young knight leaving to quest and it was not as I expected, though I had witnessed dozens during my childhood. It was different to be sat upon the mount rather than watching. As Elegor had pointed out, a knight on a quest no longer exists legally, having given up all rights and inheritances. If it sounds romantic, or morbid if you are of a pessimistic outlook, I can only say that it is practical. At least half of the knights that set out to slay a quest beast do not return, either through their untimely end or because they fail and give up. To wait months or years to learn of the fate of a departed questor, perhaps never to know it at all, would hugely complicate matters of succession, money and residence. Although such things were of small consideration within the Order, in the wider world the rule of law and the reign of lords depended upon such arrangements. And while Calibanites are not overly sentimental about family matters, we are not heartless and it is better to say one’s farewells to a living relative and expect them not to return, than to see them off with a hope that may never be fulfilled.
Not all quests begin the same, and not all households treat them equally. Aldurukh even had fashions and expectations that changed over generations and depended as much upon the predilections of the current Grand Master as the noble traditions kept alive by the Lord Cypher.
As a squire I warranted little ceremony, and though many in Aldurukh thought highly of me and my chances of returning in glory, it would have been untoward for the Grand Master or any high dignitary to witness my passing. Instead my parents, Sar Elegor and a handful of companion squires assembled to see me through the gate.
Accadis sensed something of the occasion and was full of energy, eager to be leaving. I had painted over the device of Sar Elegor on her armoured flanks and the pauldrons of my wargear, breaking the master and squire bond that had existed between us. He gave me one of his bolt pistol magazines as a sign of his blessing, while the squires presented me with a garland of bright red flowers that they hung about my neck as though it were a medallion of the tourney.
‘Bloodpetal,’ Fyona told me in a whisper as she gave me a swift kiss on the cheek. ‘To ward away blades.’
At a signal from Sar Elegor, the door within the great gate opened and I rode out onto Iorica’s Causeway, the vastness of the forest spread around me as the road angled back and forth down the mountainside.
I told myself not to look back, but when I reached the first sharp bend in the causeway the toll of a bell rang down from the citadel. I recognised the note immediately, for it came from the Grand Voice, the bell whose knell rang out along the valley four times a day and could guide lost travellers to Aldurukh from kilometres away. It was not on the quarter-day so in my surprise I turned in the saddle.
It was then that a knot tightened about my heart, for on the tower of the causeway gate was a small group of knights. It was too far to see each of them, but above flew the long pennant of the Grand Master.
