The Beast Arises

Most of the elaborate decorum of the High Lords’ conclaves had been gradually stripped away by each episode in the growing tragedy enveloping Terra and the Segmentum Solar. Gone were the hordes of retainers, the pomp of the Lucifer Blacks in escort, the self-important clarions and gaily coloured banners.

The entourage of clerks, administrators, vox- and vid-datacordists, factotums and counsellors was much diminished, replaced in part by two companies of Lucifer Blacks in combat gear rather than ceremonial uniforms. It made the large, echoing space of the chapel’s nave seem even grander, even emptier without the attendant background noise of teeming functionaries that had used to fill it with their tapping, scribbling and murmuring.

The Imperial Palace, the whole sprawling edifice, seemed overly grandiose. At least, Vangorich felt it so. The parade grounds built for Legions stood empty. Halls dedicated to the assembly of thousands in audience lay dusty and unused. Vast wings had been erected to house the armies of administrators that had been spawned over the last millennia, while the immensity of the past was allowed to remain standing idle, each vacant shell a hollow claim to a power that had long departed.

The High Lords seemed small and frail surrounded by the vastness of the chapel, as if it represented the scale of the threat they faced. In a palace built for demigods, they seemed more insignificant than ever.

Vangorich moved in the shadows beyond the central meeting, only half-listening to the back and forth of bickering and politics. He measured each man and woman at the table, recalling plans long in motion, schemes that had been devised over many years lest the need arise.

He knew exactly how each would die, if necessary. That was his role, though none subjected to his scrutiny would care to admit as much.

Take Mesring, for example. The Ecclesiarch thought himself safe, having uncovered and possibly countered the toxin Vangorich had introduced into his system. It might be a bluff, might be that the seed of Mesring’s destruction still tainted the blood in his veins, but it mattered nothing to the Grand Master if it was not. His agents had poisoned the head of the Imperial Church once, and they could do it again. Next time it would not be for leverage, it would be quick-acting and lethal.

Then Lansung, the Lord High Admiral, saviour and failure in one body. Vangorich often tempted himself with the idea that his own hand would deliver the blow here. Of them all, Lansung’s megalomania and vainglory had caused the most damage. But it was not the Grand Master’s position to strike the fatal blow. Not always. He was the hand that held the dagger, not the blade itself.

In passing, he caught the eye of his operative amongst the minions hovering close to the High Lords. It was remarkable how so lethal an individual, one so possessed of physical strength and dexterity, could masquerade his puissance beneath the plain green cowl and cape of an Administratum adept, his size and power hidden as easily as the mono-stiletto he carried. The weapon was fashioned from gene-modified bone as hard as steel. Organic matter, invisible to any auspex currently known to the minds of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Esad Wire, the Beast, Vangorich’s right hand during the unfolding catastrophe. The Beast did not react to the brief glance of his master, his attention fixed on the proceedings of the High Lords, features hidden in the darkness beneath his cowl.

And there was Kubik, Fabricator General, head of the Cult Mechanicus. Today he was present only in hololithic representation. Perhaps he feared to attend in person after the revelations of previous gatherings. The Adeptus Mechanicus’ long-standing relationship with the Imperium of Terra had been fractious of late. Agendas had clashed, information had been hoarded, loyalties had been called into question.

Vangorich looked at the static-flecked image of the Martian overlord and wondered whether recent protestations of renewed dedication to the Imperial cause were simply more lies. In a show of cooperation, Kubik had shared — under duress — the findings regarding the ork teleporter technology and the location of Ullanor, the world from which this threat seemed to have sprung.

The Grand Master had plans and agents in place within the Adeptus Mechanicus on both Terra and Mars to extract what further information was being hidden and, if ultimate sanction was required, to strike at Kubik himself.