The Emperor's Legion (Watchers of the Throne #1) - Chris Wraight Page 0,50
erode it now is weakness of faith.’
‘It is weakness of mind to change nothing when the facts demand it,’ countered Uila Lamma, the Paternoval Envoy of the Navigators. Alone among the High Lords, Lamma was a representative of the real power behind the Houses, the vast and bloated mutant who occupied the Paternoval Palace of the warp scryers. I liked her too – as a servant like me, albeit an exalted one, she had retained some sense of proportion in life. ‘How many times have we seen the Lex bind our hands, when the Enemy has no law at all? We have held back from creating thousands more Chapters because we are held in thrall by the Lord Commander’s ancient doctrine. I say the day has long since passed for this. Let us unleash the Ten Thousand. Let us unlock the gene-labs and create new Space Marines to serve under our direct command. Let us re-form the Imperial Army, arm the Ecclesiarchy and end these divisions that cripple us.’
That was dangerous talk, and risked making the argument unwinnable. The first rule of political change was to limit what was being asked for – they would never go for a wholesale revision of the Codex Astartes.
Leops Franck spoke next, the stick-thin Master of the Astronomican and the last of those who opposed the motion. ‘You are forgetting your history, my lords,’ he whispered through his rebreather, making all strain to hear him. ‘Every crisis appears to its own generation as the greatest of them all. When the Beast threatened to destroy the Imperium, we did not unleash the Ten Thousand. When Nova Terra raised its heretical head, we did not unleash the Ten Thousand. When Vandire ushered in the Reign of Blood, we did not unleash the Ten Thousand. In every case, we held firm and the wisdom of millennia was affirmed. Waver from that now, and we will deserve to perish.’
‘But in all those ages,’ objected the one who had started all of this, Kerapliades of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, ‘we still held the Eye’s Gate. We could suffer all other wounds in the knowledge that hell was contained. That is what we risk now. You know as well as I do that our grip is slipping. When the Despoiler–’
‘The Despoiler cannot break the leaguer,’ said Slyst. ‘He has failed twelve times, and this shall be no different.’
‘Have you undertaken a warp journey in recent months, Ecclesiarch?’ asked Kania Dhanda, Speaker of the Chartist Captains and a strong ally of ours. ‘Nature itself is under strain. If he can bend the elements, then he can break the leaguer.’
‘And sedition has never been greater,’ said Kleopatra Arx, the Inquisition’s Representative. ‘We have long memories in the ordos, and we know when the tide is against us.’ She passed her cool, hard eyes across the assembled lords. ‘As I have been arguing for years, we are at breaking point now. We cannot burn the heretics fast enough, and we cannot slaughter the xenos quickly enough. This is not just another phase of trial for the Holy Imperium. This is our critical moment.’
By then, only two had remained silent. Fadix rarely spoke anyway, and busied himself making notes with a crystal stave on a bone-edged data-slate. That left Valoris.
He had come, just as promised. If any of the others were surprised by that, they did not show it. Once in place, there was no question of his right to be there. The vote of acceptance had been a formality, though he had barely spoken throughout it. Now he sat halfway along the sunlit side of the table, far bulkier and more imposing than any save Raskian.
In daylight his face was even more ravaged than I remembered it. I guessed one of his many battles had done that to him – it looked like acid had been left to run across his features, making them flared and angry.
Now, slowly and deliberately, he leaned forwards and placed his gauntlets together.
‘Be aware, lords, what is at stake here,’ he said quietly. All listened. Even Fadix put down his pen. ‘The Custodians have always fought. We do not merely patrol the walls while others die in service. I am sure that none of you would have supposed otherwise, for you are all intelligent souls.’
It was strange to hear him speak again. The last time had been days ago, down in the crypts, something that had come to seem more like a dream than reality.