Genesis: Revisited

[Stoneface]

I don’t get invited much to the Petal Palace here on Amin anymore. It’s no bad thing in my opinion; bout’ twice yearly I go indulging Lord Marric and his giddy son with tales of valour and sacrifice. Extracts from my long and noble service you understand. As well as occasionally asking me to co-organise the garrison rosters and go over tactical and strategic dills with his Commander in Chief, as a favour I expect, to the honour of the ‘old man’. It doesn’t help that I’m related to most of em’. For my house is a powerful one, I was married to my dear Helena – may the Emperor rest her soul – for over a hundred years and in between the backstabbing and trying to assassinate each other we sired a goodly amount of the ingrate nobles here. Aye and a few bastards to boot; why thinking about it I believe i had an ‘encounter’ with Marric’s mother once, before she married of course. Emperors’ teeth but Marric’s nose does look familiar come to think of it.

 

Anyway I digress; it was to one of these happy little gatherings that I rallied my old carcass in preparation. As my coach entered through those huge thronging crowds that gather round the palace’s golden gates, I can honestly say I was getting used to the idea of having to babysit the young master, with his impudent demands to know exactly how many Orks I killed on Vask, or whether the Traitor forces of Scarus truly did slay the Governor Ulrich in 756’. However I was to be disappointed. I’d barely stepped from my coach when one of his Lordships’ lackeys, decked out all in purple, jogs over to me and excitedly requests “that his most dutiful and excellent servant Lord High General and Rear Admiral Wolfe make haste to the Governor at once!”. Well hello, thinks I, something’s amiss here if His Lordships’ got his wretches dragooning me at the very entrance, and using my titles to boot, well Marric flattery will get you nowhere m’lad. Except of course it pretty much had in his case. At any rate I clambered up to his private audition room (that’s 12 floors I had to drag myself up, with no damned grav assistants, something about status I shouldn’t wonder) and waited for the guard to announce my arrival. They looked impressive, those guards, decked out in carapace and re-breathers, and with the grinning skull emblem on their right arms. Probably a ‘glory boy’ detachment, though with precious little glory to be found waiting on His Lordship.

 

After a politically correct pause of around two minutes the doors were flung open to reveal His Lordships grinning face; well that wouldn’t do. If you’re as used to trouble as I then you’ll realise that when you’re superiors are stood grinning at you it can only ever mean bad news. He beckoned me into the lobby, offering me an ice tea or glass of amasec, which i accepted gratefully, and sat down.

 

We talked for a while, rather uneventfully, about all manner of unimportant topics: his son, the Ladian gulf war, the damned weather. At length I remarked on his lordships good work on suppressing the latest labour riots, to which he merely shrugged his shoulders, “Scum, but ahh...rather wiser scum now. They will not insult gentlemen like us again”.

 

There was a rather strained pause; obviously his lordship was holding something back – for his own satisfaction perhaps? I received a refill of amasec and squinted at Marric, “My Lord, forgive me for being so blunt, but you’re page seemed quite perturbed. Is anything the matter?”

Marric sat back and let a smile spread across his face. “Wolfe my old friend, I have a surprise to show you”. He shooed the servants away and led me through into a partitioned backroom, drawing a pair of thick scarlet curtains closed after us. Once in that room, I almost had a heart attack.

 

“One of my contacts found it among a collection of old tat and faked relics on a back water auction house on Elethium. Knowing my tastes he brought it to my attention.” He beckoned me closer to it. It, I might say, was an object on a small plinth in the middle of room. “Well it reminded me of one of the stories you were telling Darius, the one about the Adeptus Astartes and the Diogenes Crusade?”

 

My heart was in my throat; by the Emperor, the Diogenes Crusade. I hadn’t given it much thought in decades, the tale I’d spun Marric’s boy was just that, a tale, more or less, but this thing, here, chilled my blood. It was a helmet, originally belonging to a Space Marine, but it had been defiled, runes and markings scratched into its black surface. A snarling visage moulded onto the original respirator grill. Tentatively I stepped forward and cupped my had around the back of the helmet, feeling its plasteel surface, feeling for the ultimate vindication of my fears. There it was, a motto, scratched into the back, there were lines crossed through them, but the words were still clear in my memory. They read:

 

‘Here lies a fallen God.

Here stands a madman.

He did but build his pedestal,

A narrow and a tall one.’

 

Benevolent Emperor but it was real! For the first time in one hundred and seventy years i found myself lost in the past, that awful episode of my life. I could see that helmet now as I saw it then, not black and ugly, but bright red, and proudly worn. The Space Marine in question had been a proud man then, a tall and gallant captain of the Blood Angels, and as brave as any man, or Astartes even, as I have ever met. My mind was a blur of images jostling for position. Could I not see him still, atop the rubble of Mothgerren, a sword in one hand and the banner of the 3rd company in the other? Gesturing westwards “Come and take it with me my Aminian! If old Runjius could see us now eh? Would he leap from his funeral pyre, think you?” But he was a damned man. We all were. Before my eyes the 31st regiment are being mown down in the Slae Perine meadow. Admiral Junius is bleeding out on his foredeck. I could hear the terrible tramp of the Surzhyk again, rank upon traitorous rank of them pouring out from the Moochee fortress Gate, crying “Gah-Dello buro! To Cadia! To Terra!” and at last I could see her, with the great light flashing blindingly at her heals, those large Kahli stained eyes mocking me from over a century and half ago...

 

“Wolfe!” Marric interrupted, “by the Emperor man, are you alright? You look awful! I say, it is isn’t it? It belonged to that Astartes you mentioned. Well well...”

 

“Forgive me you’re lordship, I feel a mite faint, may I take a minute on the veranda? I promise to explain all once I recover my senses”.

 

Marric agreed, cooing “of course of course my old friend” and saying he would be with the Finance Minister (who unbeknown to me had been but two floors down the whole time. Throwing away others people’s money in the game room no doubt). I made my way to the veranda, breathing heavily. Outside it was slightly breezily, but pleasant, the sun was setting on Amin’s capital city, Selucia, a beautiful gleaming metropolis and the jewel of this already precious garden world. I took out a holostick and lit it, exhaling slowing. I wanted to be alone at just then. Alone with my memories.

 

TO BE CONTINUED.

[Darkchild130]

I like your writing style.

 

Darkchild

[Pulse]

A fine start Stoneface - i can see the Flashman influence!