[Czevak] - Atlas Infernal by Rob Sanders

Author:Rob Sanders [Sanders, Rob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2011-06-07T05:00:00+00:00

ACT II, CANTO III

Archeodeck, Rogue trader Malescaythe, The Eye of Terror

Enter KLUTE

It had been three days.

Three days for Klute to cleanse himself of Ablutraphur’s stink and for the recurring images of the hive city’s horrific demise to fade from his mind. The inquisitor had spent a good deal of this time either at prayer or submerged in plunge basins of scorching water, anointed oils and Saint Vesta’s salt in the rogue trader’s baptisterium. Unlike Czevak, who purged himself of the Eye’s corruptive influence every time he opened his precious Atlas Infernal and bathed in the spiritual sterility of the tome’s nullflesh, Klute had to go to great efforts to resist the contamination of dreadspace.

While Klute had been purifying both body and spirit, Czevak had immersed himself in matters less holy. As the inquisitor crossed the deck he saw Czevak and Torqhuil camped out amongst a nest of tables and the Relictors Techmarine’s extensive collection of tomes, artefacts and recovered archeotech. The Space Marine safely stored the bulk of his Chaos relics and arcana in the large Geller and stasis chambers that adjoined the archeodeck, but the Relictor and High Inquisitor’s joint project of communing with the daemon Mammoshad had demanded extensive experimentation and research. Czevak had the pages of Kronochet’s Anatomae and the Corpus Vivexorsectio spread out amongst various other dark grimoires, banned xenos translations and daemonologist tracts while the Relictor moved back and forth between the deck and the stasis chambers with tools, ancient remnants and bastardised equipment, heretically configured without consideration for STC tech-designations.

Czevak didn’t acknowledge Klute’s approach, but the Relictors Space Marine looked up from his sacrilegious tinkering and nodded gravely. Czevak looked like hell. Despite his youthful complexion, his eyes were dark and his expression distant and empty. His mouth was tensed in a line of vexation and his fingers stiff and irritable as he flicked through the pages of his damned tomes.

The Black Sovereign of Sierra Sangraal was sitting in amongst a jury-rigged apparatus, constructed from a hotchpotch myriad of different instruments. The machine was all turntables, wires and finger glyphs. The contraption was crowned with a pair of speaking trumpets that twisted around one another, lending it the appearance of a twin phonograph. In the centre spun the Black Sovereign on an anti-gravity field with a psychoactive crystal stylus running along the grooved edge of the large coin.

Klute had been present as Torqhuil had completed the sacrilegious project and the daemon’s first words escaped the blooming funnel of the left hand trumpet. The inquisitor didn’t understand the words, although it was clear that the daemonic entity was in full flow. Its voice excited the air around them and was an unholy mixture of raptorial screech and reptilian sibilance.

Torqhuil had to rescue his dia-log interface and runecable from the Hellebore’s mnemonic bank, adjusting the shaft of tubular keys and attempting likely combinations before settling on a configuration that turned the hissing cacophony of squawks erupting from the trumpet into words that the Techmarine and the two inquisitors had instantly recognised.

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