Day Of Ascension (Warhammer 40,000) by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Author:Adrian Tchaikovsky [Tchaikovsky, Adrian]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2022-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

9

Burzulem couldn’t really recline, what with his body lacking anything approaching a waist. Instead he was up on his dais overlooking the arena grounds, eating spiced mercury sweetmeats and making sneering observations to Alloysia. Down below him, on the arena’s plascrete field, was the great alembic, into which all the wretched offerings would be decanted at the height of the festivities. The servitors had the chemical fires beneath it up to a fine blaze, the flames leaping blue and green and white as Burzulem applauded each change. His particular cronies of the moment were up on the podium with him, sitting at his many feet and feigning appreciation of the man’s eclectic humours. And Triskellian, of course. Not as a favourite but as the butt of those witticisms, wearing the invisible fool’s hat of Chief Festiviator. And if Burzulem was surprised by the stoicism with which he bore it all, the man didn’t show it. Probably the Fabricator General thought that he had old Visceral well and truly whipped.

Well, let him.

The little vox-bead he had wired to his ear was giving him a scattershot picture of the Congregation’s uprising in South Chasm and it was all going perfectly satisfactorily. They’d put on a good show, and the local forces had been swamped by them and were pulling back to the central districts of the city. The word would be with Burzulem soon enough – it would have reached him sooner save that Triskellian had inserted himself into the chain of communication and was keeping a lid on the pot to let it get up to the boil.

The Morod forces he had direct control of, that should have descended on the whole sordid squabble and penned the rioters within South Chasm, were following his meticulous instructions to the letter, holding themselves ready to intervene without ever actually doing it. Meanwhile, Alpha Primus Ten-Tangram was still disembarking more of his returnees, billeting them in garrisons near the Palatium to await Triskellian’s word.

He was walking a very narrow line. If anyone ever discovered just what had gone on in Auctorites today, somehow unearthed all the communications logs or dug up the precise commands Triskellian had given to the various skitarii squads, then his name would indeed be known in the annals of the Adeptus Mechanicus, but only as an arch-heretek. He was painfully aware that nobody would understand that he only had the order’s good at heart. Sometimes we must do these things, towards the greater end.

Burzulem had plainly just made some barbed remark at his expense. The strained look on Triskellian’s face evidently pleased him. A moment later, a very junior tech-acolyte was pelting up the steps to reach the Fabricator General, wheezing as his artificial lungs lagged behind his exertions. He had a scroll in one hand, which he proffered wordlessly.

Triskellian had practically been tracking the vanguard of news as it raced from the rail depot to the Palatium and then, finding Burzulem absent, rebounded off in the direction of the arena.

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