[Warhammer 40K - The Horus Heresy 38] - Angels of Caliban by Gav Thorpe

Author:Gav Thorpe [Gav Thorpe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Military Fiction, Science Fiction, Warhammer 40K
ISBN: 9781785720789
Published: 2016-05-20T13:05:04+00:00

The key slid effortlessly into its lock with a satisfying metallic click, perfectly matched even centuries after both had been made. The lock itself, and the door within which it sat, were only visible to Zahariel’s second sight—any ungifted resident of the Angelicasta would pass by the unremarkable stretch of wood-panelled wall without pause.

Already assured by his psychic sense that no such interloper was near enough to witness the act, the Master of the Mystai pushed at the wood with a gloved hand, the door opening silently on beautifully counterweighted hinges.

The precision that had gone into the construction of the chamber was something that gave him a profound sense of pleasure. It told him of a mind that had, by necessity, paid attention to the most minor details. Its designer had been aware of the consequences of even the slightest deviation from strictly defined parameters of safety and acceptance.

The mind of a psyker.

The rest of the Mystai followed Zahariel into the chamber, padding on slippered feet. The floor was a single mass of granite, nearly black. Inset were golden symbols and hexagrammatic polygonal patterns. The walls were marble, covered with a tracery of lead in convoluted warding shapes.

The Mystai took up position at the cardinal points of the hexagram, one at every other line of the star, Zahariel at their centre.

To Zahariel’s awakened senses, the spirit of Caliban lapped at the psychic defences, held at bay as a sea resisted by a cliff. Above, as though the chamber had been opened to the sky by the sigils on the floor, the warp roiled and burned, the storm that had beset it raging in a tempest. Never the two should meet, such was the intent and design of the room.

A place of sanctuary, where the Mystai could study and practise and grow their powers, watching the warp, tapping into its energies without the pull of Caliban.

Without the call of the Ouroboros singing in their ears.

Zahariel could hear it, a delicate song of life and beauty, touched with the melancholy of isolation and loneliness. An autumn song, fearing the coming of winter, remembering the long days of summer.

This chamber was a gathering place, not for psykers, but for power. The sigils channelled and refined the warp energy seeping through the room. With Caliban’s hunger held at bay it could be tapped without the two energies ever conjoining.

For an age Caliban had craved this connection. The Ouroboros had spent an immortal life seeking reunion with the realm from which it had been stolen. The secret had been here all along, hidden behind walls of stone and symbols of lead. A vault, impenetrable from the outside.

Zahariel opened his mind, letting free the piece of the Ouroboros he had brought with him.

Spring would come to Caliban again.

Like a seed, the psychic remnant took root, spreading out into the minds of the other Mystai. They resisted at first, as had Zahariel. Human fear, primal and unbreakable, lashed out. But the Ouro­boros fed on the warp, drinking deep of the power denied it for so long.

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