Ahriman: The Dead Oracle Read Free Page B

the sphere’s inner surface. We had simply arrived without need of an entrance.
    The Oracle hung at the sphere’s centre, arms spread wide. I recognised the shape of power armour, but the warp had woven its mystery over its form. It glinted with a mirror polish, and its helm was featureless, without eyes or mouth.
    The Eyeless Oracle , I thought, and it echoed through the space as though I had shouted aloud.
    The Oracle’s true name was Menkaura, and once he had marched to war with the rest of the Thousand Sons. He had changed much since then, though. We all had.
    He had left his name and Legion in the past, and grown to become what now hung above us. Eyes orbited his blind body, like planets around a parent star. I had heard of him, of course, and long known that he was one of my gene-brothers, but I had never come to his temple. I had never felt the need to know the future.
    The Oracle did not move as we walked to the centre of the chamber.
    ‘Menkaura,’ said Ahriman, his voice neither raised nor whispered. ‘I have returned, brother.’ He paused. Beside him, Sanakht and Astraeos shifted. ‘I have questions.’
    Still Menkaura did not move.
    Prickles rose on my skin. Something shifted at the corner of my eye, and I turned my head to look at the curved wall. A distorted image of myself gazed back at me. I licked my lips carefully, tasting the slight tinge of acid in my spit. I wanted to extend my will into the aether. I wanted to pull at the stilled mirror of this place, to stir it, to send it churning. But I did none of these things. Even though everything was telling me that we had walked into the heart of something that we had not anticipated, I restrained myself. Instead I began to prepare for the deed that I had been brought there to perform.
    Menkaura . I spoke his name in a chamber of my thoughts.
    Men-kau-ra. The syllables spilt and echoed within separate compartments of thought.
    Men.
    Kau.
    Ra.
    Each sound became a separate box, labelled and sealed, like a body sliced and portioned into grave jars. My mind spun over each fragment of name, preparing mental ciphers and patterns that would snap shut when I willed it. Names are more than titles. They pin our existence in place. Unname something, break its title, undo its calling, and you pull it apart. Ahriman did not want to talk to the Oracle – he wanted to chain him, and he had brought me to forge the links.
    Binding a daemon is not a simple matter. It is creating a prison for a creature whose being is corrosive to existence. It requires subtly, brutality, and knowledge. One misstep, one faltering instant or error, and you do not die; you become the toy of torment for a creature of infinite spite and imagination. Many fail and are enslaved by the beings that they seek to master. So when I say that binding the soul of a living creature is of another order of difficulty, you should know what I mean. Life fights to be free of the tyranny of others. Even life twisted by and shackled to lies will claw, and thrash, and shriek before it allows another being to put a collar around its neck.
    Vile.
    That was what Astraeos had called what I was preparing to do. He was right. It was vile.
    The formulae spread through my mind like snares set in the long grass to wait for a lion’s tread, like razors set out beside a dissection table. Silently, unseen, held ready but not brought into being, it took seconds to make the bindings ready, and all the while I looked up at the unmoving, unspeaking shape of the Oracle, and knew that I was about to break what remained of its soul.
    ‘I come to you now twice, brother’ said Ahriman, and the Oracle turned to face him. ‘As I did before, I demand the truth that is owed to all who enter this place. I submit to the ordinances of this temple, and will not pass from its doors without truth received and payment given.’
    + You should not have come, Ahriman. + The psychic voice was thin, as if forced out between dry, cracked