The Horus Heresy: Vengeful Spirit

‘Varfell was part of the Thirteenth’s expeditionary forces when they reached this world,’ said Horus. ‘Roboute gave him much credit for making Dwell’s reintegration to the Imperium bloodless. But soon after compliance the old man’s heart finally started rejecting the juvenat treatments, and he chose to be implanted within the Mausolytic rather than continue onwards. He rather liked the idea of becoming part a whole world’s shared memory.’

‘He told you this?’

‘Eventually,’ said Horus. ‘The dead don’t easily give up their secrets, but I didn’t ask gently.’

‘What do the dead of this world know of gods and their doom?’ demanded Fulgrim.

‘More than you or I,’ said Horus.

‘What does that mean?’

Horus strolled through the rows of cryo-cylinders, touching some and pausing momentarily to peer at their glowing occupants. He spoke as he walked, as though recounting nothing of consequence, though Aximand saw the studied nonchalance veiled great import.

‘I came to Dwell because I recently become aware of several lacunae in my memories, voids where there ought to be perfect recall.’

‘What couldn’t you remember?’ said Fulgrim.

‘If that isn’t a stupid question, I don’t know what is,’ grunted Mortarion with a sound that might have been laughter.

Fulgrim hissed in anger, but the Death Lord took no notice.

‘I’d read the Great Crusade log concerning Dwell decades ago, of course,’ continued Horus, ‘though I’d put it from my mind since there hadn’t been any conflict. But when I sent the Seventeenth to Calth, Roboute spoke of the great library his highest epistolary had constructed. He said it was a treasure-house of knowledge to rival the Mausolytic of Dwell and its great repository of the dead.’

‘So you came to Dwell to see if you could fill the void in your memory?’ said Fulgrim.

‘After a fashion,’ agreed Horus, circling back to where he had begun his circuit of the cylinders. ‘Every man and woman interred here over the millennia has become part of a shared consciousness, a world memory containing everything each individual had learned, from the first great diaspora to the present day.’

‘Impressive,’ agreed Mortarion.

‘Hardly,’ said Fulgrim. ‘We all have eidetic memories. What is there here of value I do not already know?’

‘Do you remember all your battles, Fulgrim?’ asked Horus.

‘Of course. Every sword swing, every manoeuvre, every shot. Every kill.’

‘Squad names, warriors? Places, people?’

‘All of it,’ insisted Fulgrim.

‘Then tell me of Molech,’ said Horus. ‘Tell me what you remember of that compliance.’

Fulgrim opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. His expression was that of a blank-faced novitiate as he sought the answer to a drill sergeant’s rhetorical question.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Fulgrim. ‘I remember Molech, I do, its wilds and its high castles and its Knights, but…’

His words trailed off, putting Aximand in the mind of a warrior suffering severe head trauma. ‘We were both there, you and I, before the Third Legion had numbers to operate alone. And the Lion? Wait, was Jaghatai there too?’

Horus nodded. ‘So the logs say,’ he said. ‘We four and the Emperor travelled to Molech. It complied, of course. What planet would offer resistance to Legion forces led by the Emperor?’

‘An overwhelming force,’ said Mortarion. ‘Was heavy resistance expected?’

‘Far from it,’ said Horus. ‘Molech’s rulers were inveterate record keepers, and they remembered Terra. Its people had weathered Old Night, and when the Emperor descended to the surface it was inevitable they would accept compliance.’

‘We remained there for some months, did we not?’ asked Fulgrim.

Aximand glanced at Abaddon and saw the same look on the First Captain’s face he felt he wore. He too remembered Molech, but like the primarchs was having difficulty in recalling specific details. Aximand had almost certainly visited the planet’s surface, but found it hard to form a coherent picture of its environs.

‘According to the Vengeful Spirit’s horologs, we were there for a hundred and eleven standard Terran days, one hundred and nine local. After we left nearly a hundred regiments of Army, three Titanicus cohorts and garrison detachments from two Legions were left in place.’

‘For a planet that embraced compliance?’ said Mortarion. ‘A waste of resources if ever I heard it. What need did the Emperor have to fortify Molech with such strength?’

Horus snapped his fingers and said, ‘Exactly.’

‘I’m guessing you have an answer for that question,’ said Fulgrim. ‘Otherwise why summon us here?’

‘I have an answer of sorts,’ said Horus, tapping the cryo-cylinder containing Arthis Varfell. ‘A specialty of this particular iterator was the early history of the Emperor, the wars of Unity and the various myths and legends surrounding His assumption of Old Earth’s throne. The memories of Dwell are untainted, and many of its earliest settlers were driven here by the raging tides of Old Night. What they remember goes back a very long way, and Varfell assimilated it all.’