The Trials Of Isador Read online

  A WARHAMMER 40,000 STORY

  THE TRIALS

  OF ISADOR

  C.S. Goto

  The binding of the book glistened slightly as Gabriel looked at it, shifting and shimmering in the dim light of the little librarium that the captain kept reserved for his personal use. There was an intricate design inscribed into the unusual material of the cover; it seemed to flicker in and out of resolution, as though its level of precision lay just beyond the capacities of even Gabriel’s enhanced eyes. The book enticed and repulsed simultaneously.

  “Where did you find this, Prathios?” he asked, without averting his eyes from the elaborate, silvered image of raven-wings before him.

  “He left it in my care, captain,” replied the Chaplain. His voice was deep and edged with concern, like the warm light ebbing out of the orb that hung above the desk. For a moment, Prathios wanted to reach out of the shadows and place a reassuring hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. The captain looked strained and gaunt, sitting before the heavy tome in the lonely space, he wore the worries of a captain whose battle-brother and friend had fallen beyond his sight right before his eyes.

  “He gave it to you?” asked Gabriel. He turned his head slightly, as though to indicate a measure of incredulity, but not far enough for Prathios to see his face.

  The Chaplain measured his words. “He entrusted it to me.”

  There was a long silence before Gabriel turned his head back to the book, considering its remarkable cover with a deep sadness in his heart. “And you entrust it to me, Prathios? What would you have me do with it?”

  “You are our captain, Gabriel, and Commander of the Watch. It is for you to decide.” The Chaplain’s words were laced with an unspoken meaning that Gabriel was reluctant to acknowledge.

  “He was my friend, Prathios…” began Gabriel, letting his words trail into a thoughtful silence. “We fought in the Blood Trials of Cyrene together, all those years ago. You must remember that? We stood shoulder to shoulder at the end of that ordeal, as we did after innumerable battles thereafter, each holding the fate of the other in our hands. We were united in trust from the very beginning, Prathios. I do not want this now.”

  Prathios looked down at the back of his captain’s closely cropped and scarred head. Not for the first time, he found himself thinking that Gabriel looked old before his time, as though the crippling responsibilities of his position and his past had defeated even the renowned longevity of the Blood Ravens.

  The Chaplain remembered those fateful Blood Trials well—he had been there too. He had been the one who had overseen the intense competition and the bloodshed. He had watched Gabriel and Isador emerge victorious and gore-soaked from the fray, one after the other. He had seen the way that they had drawn instinctively together, never once turning their fearsome passions on each other, despite the clear rules of the trials; for the sake of mutual respect and trust, they had risked mutual failure. And that was one of the reasons that they had passed: unbreakable resolve and inherent brotherhood was just as important as combat proficiency.

  The Blood Ravens could fashion a Space Marine out of any healthy body, as long as it was a genetic match with the Chapter’s gene-seed, but that body would be of no use to anyone if its will was weak or fractured. Worse: a weakness of will could be the seed of treachery, and too many Marines had already fallen into the cursed abyss of heresy.

  It was their instantaneous and profound brotherhood that made Isador’s fall so painful and personal for Gabriel, but ultimately it had been Prathios who had approved of their ascension into the ranks of the Blood Ravens neophytes. It had been Prathios who had overlooked the infringement of the rules of the trials, which had explicitly stated that each warrior was finally responsible only for himself. He could have set the survivors against one another, forcing them to fight through to the last man standing, but he had seen the resolve in those fiery blue-green eyes and he had known that there was no way that Gabriel would turn on his impromptu brother-in-arms.

  It had been Prathios who had placed his own sense of wisdom before the traditions of the Blood Ravens and, to some extent, it had been on his recommendation that the Blood Ravens Third Company had quietly permitted the terms of their Blood Trials to evolve to permit teamwork. The spectacular rise of Gabriel and Isador into the most senior ranks of the company seemed to provide evidence enough for the wisdom of this evolution. Prathios had flattered himself that this practice made the Third Company more human than some of the other Chapters, and even than some of the other companies of the Blood Ravens. Besides which, it was no secret that the Chapter was increasingly in need of initiates, as its numbers began to dwindle. Recruiting only one warrior from each trial no longer seemed like an option: new measures for new needs. However, for the first time in many decades, Prathios realised that he had some doubts about how to conduct the Blood Trials when the Litany of Fury arrived at Trontiux III and then Lorn V. Perhaps Space Marines were not meant to be so human after all?

  “None of us want this, Gabriel,” said Prathios eventually, “but we must each act as our responsibilities dictate.”

  “You want me to read it?” asked Gabriel. “Or do you want me to pass it along to the Chapter Masters? Perhaps you would prefer if I sent it directly to the Ordo Hereticus? Is that not my duty?”

  There was an injection of venom in Gabriel’s voice that made Prathios smart. He knew that duty and responsibility did not always coincide, and that the first did not always make the second bearable.

  “It is not for me to say, captain,” replied Prathios honestly. “My place is to look after your spiritual well-being, and hence I can simply advise you to act as your responsibilities and duties dictate. Librarian Isador Akios was a leading figure in the Third Company of the Emperor’s Blood Ravens. He was an initiate of the Ordo Psykana, he was a precious member of your command team, he was a powerful warrior, our battle-brother, and… and he was our friend, Gabriel.”

  Gabriel nodded in resignation—he knew that he could not expect his Chaplain to make this decision for him, and he knew that the responsibility was his, as it had been for innumerable difficult questions before now. He had borne the responsibility for the extermination of his own homeworld, out of duty to the Emperor and his Chapter. It was his duty to shoulder these things, no matter what the personal cost. Not for the first time, he wished that the long and painful process of becoming a Blood Raven could have eradicated his humanity and left him only with a sense of duty. He had heard rumours that this was true of some of the other Chapters of Space Marines. But he also knew that his emotions gave him types of knowledge that mere calculation and duty could not—intuitive knowledge was still knowledge, if you knew how to handle it. And knowledge is power.

  “Knowledge is power,” muttered Gabriel as he ran his fingers over the metallic cover of the book in front of him.

  “Guard it well,” intoned Prathios, as though automatically completing the motto of the Blood Ravens.

  “Yes,” said Gabriel, as he realised the particular salience of that deeply imbedded maxim. “Knowledge is power—guard it well.”

  With a new sense of resolution and certainty, he opened Isador’s journal to the last page, where he saw the characteristically elaborate and decorative script of his old friend. Even in his personal log, the former Librarian kept the kind of immaculate record that he had demanded of all Blood Ravens—when knowledge is power, every last detail needed to be recorded, lest the vital information be lost through carelessness.

  Gabriel nodded in recognition of the diligence of his one-time friend, but then he started to read and he recoiled in shock.

  That fool Gabriel has no idea what’s happening on this blessed world. He thinks that the approaching warp storm is to be f
eared, and that the artefacts we have found must be destroyed. Such blindness. How much will this stupidity cost us? How far can I permit this to go?

  Even if the others cannot, I can see the mania in his eyes, and I know the secrets of the voices that he hides from us, those that sing into his soul in the guise of the sacred choir. He cannot conceal these silvering tones from me. For I hear them too, but I know their nature and I know that the Emperor has not blessed them. This is the difference between my old friend and me: I can tell the difference between truth and lies, for my soul has been wrought and tested in the secret fires of the great Librarium Sanatorium, and yet it is the bumbling, ignorant captain that leads our company into error and stupidity.

  The Great Father would lament the idiocy of his favoured son—how far removed from his own nature are the children of Vidya? Have the Blood Ravens really regressed so far that they no longer see the wisdom of placing Librarians in charge of their affairs? Did Vidya mean nothing? Why does Gabriel persist in ignoring me? Does he really think that he is better than I am? He would not even be here were it not for me—he couldn’t have pieced together the pieces of this Tartaran puzzle. In truth, he would have died back on Cyrene with the other aspirants all those decades ago. I have carried him for too long, and now he cannot even see that I’m doing it.

  If Gabriel has neither the vision nor the will to harness the power of the Maledictum for the Blood Ravens and the Emperor, then I will do it myself. The time has come for me to step out of the tainted shadow of the misguided captain. His fate is sealed already by my reports to the Order of the Lost Rosetta—they will see to it that the Third Company will be in need of a new commander soon, and I will show the Blood Ravens that such positions should be filled by visionary Librarians once again. The Blood Ravens will recapture the nature of Azariah Vidya, even if we must pay the bloody costs of our own cleansing… and Gabriel should know all about such costs.

  Gabriel pushed the book away from him, unable to read on. His face was white and his eyes burned dryly, as though he had been struck with acid. From the shadows behind him, Prathios could see the captain’s shoulders tense and the muscles in his back bunch.

  The book slid across the polished surface of the table, but stopped just short of falling off the edge, left teetering precariously on the point of balance. It pivoted slightly on the lip, as though mocking them.

  “Have you read this, Prathios?” Gabriel’s voice betrayed something uneven in his soul.

  Silence answered him in the place of a confirmation.

  “That is not an answer,” snapped Gabriel, turning in his chair to face the Chaplain for the first time. “Have you read this, Chaplain Prathios?”

  For the first time since they had met when Prathios had recruited him on Cyrene, Gabriel saw the falterings of doubt creased into the Chaplain’s features. There was another pause, but then Prathios found his voice at last. “Yes, captain. I have read parts of it. More than enough. And yet not enough… Enough to know that prudence dictates that it requires your attention before that of any other authority, Gabriel. It is a volatile document, old friend.”

  Peering through the shadows, Gabriel’s eyes burned like flaming emeralds, tingeing eerily between green and blue. For a moment, Prathios thought that he saw something alien buried inside, a Gabriel that he had never known seemed to lurk in the recesses of his hidden heart.

  Blinking out the light, Gabriel turned back to the table and reached out for the book. He drew it back towards him and opened it forcefully, letting the pages fall arbitrarily near the start of the volume.

  I have watched this man for over a hundred years. He has always made his offerings to the Emperor at each of the designated times of the day, dutifully and with firmness of resolution. But something inexplicable has changed in the nature of his observances since Cyrene—it has become gradually impossible to deny that the subtle changes have become substantive. I wonder whether there is a need for me to act on this, or perhaps to seek advice from Chaplain Prathios.

  This morning I found Gabriel kneeling in prayer in the chapel, as the Litany of Fury pushed into the Tartarus system. We had already seen the first dregs of ork vessels littering the outer reaches, and the captain should have been on the control deck.

  I found him without his armour and apparently transfixed. When I called his name, it was as though he could not hear me at all. This is not unheard of amongst more pious Marines, but when I persisted his response was violent. As though possessed by some primal instinct, he grasped out at my neck, before I struck him back into awareness. As I looked into his distraught and confused features, I witnessed a single tear of blood run down his face—like the jewel of the Blood Ravens itself. Not for the first time, I was alarmed to see that his eyes seemed to flicker between green and blue.

  For a moment, I might have forgotten that he is not a Librarian, for I have only ever seen such soul-shifts amongst rare initiates of the Librarium Sanatorium. Yet Gabriel has never set foot in those hallowed halls. He was never deemed worthy of that elated calling. Even Prathios did not judge him able to withstand the long years of psychic torment involved. And yet now I wonder whether he has even been able to withstand the psychic trauma of his duties on Cyrene.

  He is quite changed. His piety has become laced with mania.

  I must seek the guidance of the Chaplain before the campaign on Tartarus really begins.

  Gabriel ran his hands over his closely-cropped hair, staring at the immaculate script in front of him. Perhaps for the first time, he realised the potential dangers of the near-fanatical tendency of Blood Ravens Librarians to record everything. In the past, he had asked Isador about the documentary practices of the librarium, but his old friend had invariably demurred, muttering something about the appropriate designations of knowledge, clearly indicating that it was not the place of a Space Marine captain to know too much about the affairs of the librarium.

  It was certainly true that the Librarium Sanatorium operated with unusual and well-guarded secrecy in the Blood Ravens, almost as though it were an institution in its own right, and Gabriel had often wondered whether its exclusive status within the Chapter was an idiosyncrasy or a generic aspect of the Codex Astartes. He knew that it even contained its own levels—designations as they were called—including a shadowy and elite order called the Psykana. But even the Chapter Masters would not be drawn on this question, perhaps because the majority of them were also Librarians. Not for the first time, the image of Azariah Vidya floated into his mind, and Gabriel realised that the legacy of the Great Father was a complicated one for the Blood Ravens.

  All he knew about the documentary practices was what he had seen with his own eyes: Librarians and their scribes were expected to record all events and impressions that might have significance for the Blood Ravens themselves or for the furtherance of knowledge. Each battle-barge and strike cruiser would then submit copies of all their records to the great librarium aboard the Omnis Arcanum whenever they rendezvoused, hence ensuring that the legendary central repository always contained the complete, collected knowledge of the Chapter. Knowledge was most valuable when it became a resource for the Chapter, rather than merely the musings of an individual. Knowledge is power, pondered Gabriel as he turned a few more pages.

  The Tartaran Colonel Brom has complained about Gabriel’s conduct during the battle for Magna Bonum today. He made a series of intimations about the Blood Ravens’ predilection for aerial bombardments, following the captain’s decision to call for support from the Litany of Fury. It is true that the result was the levelling of Brom’s precious city, which I can understand that he did not appreciate. However, it is also true that the bombardment broke the greenskins, and without it we might not have prevailed, despite the glory of our stand at the South Gate.

  Note: we must discover the source of these rumours about the Third Company—it seems highly unusual for such information to travel so quickly. The implications are that there are forces working against us som
ewhere in the Imperium, spreading these stories deliberately. This requires urgent attention.>>

  Gabriel understands the orks much better than Brom, and he knows that they fight for our annihilation, not for our cities. It is not Brom’s place to question the captain, although I can understand his resentment—this is his homeworld. I can only imagine how Gabriel would have reacted had somebody else made the decision to exterminate Cyrene… but I know how it feels to see Gabriel make such a decision about my home. I was with him on that day; I was on the control deck of the Litany, standing at Gabriel’s shoulder and watching our planet burn.

  I do not doubt the wisdom of Gabriel’s decision here, or before—Cyrene was lost, and sacrifices must be made in the name of the Emperor. Especially sacrifices of blood. But seeing Brom today, I realise that I resented my detachment from the destruction. Whilst I stood squarely at my captain’s shoulder, it was he who signalled the Ordo Hereticus, and it was he who finally commanded the Exterminatus. As he has stated repeatedly since then: it was his responsibility, not mine.

  Like knowledge, it seems that responsibility has its own designations—although in the person and example of Vidya these were united gloriously. Surely this should be the model for the Blood Ravens? Responsibility should be grasped in the hands of those with superior knowledge, for knowledge is power.

  Lest I should be misunderstood by my peers in the librarium should they ever read this: I am not claiming that Gabriel was wrong. Far from it—his decisions were probably correct. However, being right is not finally the point, since even an ork can be right from time to time. It is merely probability, not heresy, to observe that one in an infinite number of illiterate orks could accidentally pen the Codex Astartes. But, of course, writing the text is not the point at all, the point is the appropriate intentionality behind it, and the will to live it. The prodigal ork could not be said to be responsible for the text, since it could have no understanding of its significance.