FABIUS BILE - REPAIRER OF RUIN (2014)

Performed by Ian Brooker, Steve Conlin and Jonathan Keeble 
Sound design and music by Simon Robinson 
Running time 20 minutes 
Produced by Black Library
Written by Josh Reynolds
Scripted by Reverend. 



List of characters:
* Fabius - Apothecary of the Emperor’s Children; 
* Haruk Cantidis - Apothecary of the World Eaters.



CHAPTER 01
(sounds of battle, explosions, cries) 
(laser beams, vessels flying overhead) 
Lupercalios burned. The monuments, the great mausoleum-fortress of the XVI-th legion and its greatest redoubt shuddered in its death rows, pierced by spears of light cast from on high. The fleets of the lost and damned had come to Lupercalios to render it's masters extinct. A hundred ships or more bearing infamous names swirled about the demon world like flies drawn to a dying animal. War ships from every legion were an evidence and they had come to claim the debt owed them by the Sons of Horus. 
The monument lashed out with its defensive arrays1 in spite for defiance2 of fate. Ships died and fell burning through the atmosphere. The orbital bombardment neither ceased nor slackened despite the casualties. Landing parties had been dispatched and a smaller craft darted like minnows3 through the sea of stars and smoke which separated them from their target. Some died, caught by a lance of light but many more reached the ground. Too many... The monument would fall and the Sons of Horus would fall with it. 
* * *
(almost silence)
(several bolter rounds, bodies falling)
Fabius Bile: "Keep up, Haruk. We are on a schedule".
Chief Apothecary Fabius of the 3d Legion stepped through the smoke, bolt pistol snarling, the arms of his Chirurgeon backpack clicking and whirring4. The targeting overlay in his helmet flickered and spun across the curve of his eye, choosing targets with mechanical precision. He fired without thought and without hesitation. For all that he had once fought alongside his opponents. They had been allies once, it was true. Now they were obstacles and they will be treated accordingly. 
Haruk didn't reply, he rarely did. The World Eater wore no helmet and his scarred blood-spattered features were slack and uninterested despite his exertions5 as he followed Fabius through the corridors of the monument striking down any who got too close to the Chief Apothecary. 
(Haruk roaring, his victim squealing)
Gore-stained fingers reached up to swipe a few errant6 droplets of blood from his pitted cheek. His eyes were mismatched, the result of a lack of proper materials Fabius recalled. Still as long as they both worked Haruk hardly had room for complaint. Not that he would have even if he'd been able. In gently years Haruk Cantidis had been preeminent7 amongst the Apothecaries and psycho surgeons of the XII-th Legion. He had helped oversee the implantation of the Butcher's Nails in his fellow World Eaters. Now he was numbered amongst the Consortium of the Primogenitor8. As far as Fabius was concerned it was a step up. He never bothered to ask what Haruk thought about it.
Fabius Bile: "Keep up! Keep moving, you sluggards9". 
Fabius kicked one of the scrambling flopping10 malformed things, neither human, nor mutant, which flowed around him like a river of abused flesh and altered muscle. 
(monster squealing) 
They loped11 down the corridor towards the enemy. The receiver of his kick whined in protest, but he crushed its skull with a casual blow from one of the Chirurgeon's arms. 
(monster getting pierced and dying)
He paid no heed to its twitching carcass as he strode over it. They were chattel12, nothing more. Slaves, thralls and mad beasts cut and crafted into more useful shapes. They had been born in his flesh-vets to die at his command. Bolt shells of skin and bone fired into the ranks of his enemies. 
Fabius Bile: "No dawdling13, my children. These blood and bone are plenty for you, greedy guts. I crafted you to eat and eat you shall. Eat until your bellies burst, aye, Haruk? (laughing)"
Haruk's reply was lost in the caterwaul14 of alarms and the dull crump15 of not too distant explosions. Fabius peered ahead through the smoke towards his goal. The great adamantium doors behind which warriors mustered16 in a cavernous vault, ready to sell their lives dearly in defense of the one whom they cherished most. Even now after all that had come before, all the strife17 and failure which had brought each and every one of them to this point, from Ullanor to Terra to here, still the Sons of Horus cherished their father. Still they worshipped him despite everything. 
Fabius' lip curled in amusement.
Fabius Bile: "Fools, Haruk. That's all they have ever been. Seen divinity in the froth18 of an alembic19. Did you know I almost succeeded in replicating the genetic schemes that gave birth to their precious gene-father? Aye, and mine as well, and yours. Lack of fresh materials, that was the problem, but not after today".
(numerous voices around) 
His flesh chattel reached the vault doors a moment later. They neither slowed, nor hesitated as they struck the doors. 
(door being almost slammed) 
Many died, crushed at the point of impact, but the rest pressed forward regardless. Broad hinges squealed, then burst one by one. The doors to the vault exploded inward as if struck by a battering ram. 
(door collapsing) 
His flesh chattel flowed through a moment later, a howling and shrieking tide. Bolters opened up and monsters fell. Frag grenades clattered across the pale marble floor and exploded ripping many of the unarmored invaders to shreds. The survivors pressed forward slavering20 like maddened hounds, their raw bruised flesh marked by captivity and abuse. They fell along the front ranks of the defenders, tearing at them. Chain-swords and axes whirred and bit into mortified flesh, drenching21 the pale columns with blood and vile. 
The tide slackened and then ceased. The last of the beasts slumped, its body pock22-marked by bolter fire. Smoke filled the vault as the surviving defenders began to reload. 
(footsteps) 
Fabius stepped into the vault striding across the carpet of mangled23 flesh. He fired again and again, his shots puncturing the smoke, moving with a grace that was as much chemically derived as it was a result of his enhanced musculature - a cocktail of combat enhances, emotional dampeners and adrenalin boosters - all of his own concoction24, prepared especially for this moment and delivered through the arcane construction of the Chirurgeon, flooded the system, driving him beyond the already exceptional limits of his gene-altered physiology. What one man had made, another could improve. He had almost succeeded before, during the Heresy but circumstances had conspired against him. 
The pistol clicked dry. Fabius raised his arm and stepped aside behind the column, already reloading. Bolt shells struck the column.
Fabius Bile: "Haruk, if you please..."
Fabius' voice was mild and he felt neither fear, nor excitement, only impatience. The brass and crimson figure blurred past him and the air shivered as a chain-axe growled and bit into battle-scarred ceramite.
(one of the defenders screaming in pain)
The World Eater cut down the last of the guards and whirled as Fabius stepped into the open. The chain-axe savaged the air for a moment before its trembling wielder lowered it. 
Fabius Bile: "Well done, Haruk, for an Apothecary you make a fine butcher".
Fabius holstered his weapon and stepped past the World Eater.
Fabius Bile: "Now come along. There is no time to dawdle. For all that their pa is broken, the warriors of the XVI-th Legion still have some fight in them. And check that that damn vox recorder is still functioning. I want to be sure that my observations are properly recorded for posterity25".
Fabius strode over the bodies of the Sons of Horus and his own mutilated servants. He paid no heed to the latter, even though some still lived and mewled26 pleadingly at him as he and Haruk strode past.
(loud noise)
The mausoleum shuddered. Dust sifted down, pattering across the purple surface of his power armor as he strode towards his prize. Somewhere far above in orbits above the demon world his warship "The Pulchritudinous27" was hammering the fortress city flat alongside the rest of the fleet. He had taken the vessel for his own after the disaster of Skalathrax had claimed most, if not all, of the III-d Legion's highest ranking officers. It had fallen to him then to guide his brothers in war, to guide them to victory. And it was in the name of that victory that he had led them to Lupercalios. It was in the name of victory that he had come to crack open the tomb of the Warmaster and take what he desired.
* * *
(almost silence) 
(drilling and beeping sounds)
Fabius' armor's senses swept the tomb showing him the ever shifting patina28 of the stasis field which held the body of Horus Lupercal. That body was broken and torn but still mighty even in death. It still held some seed of the potency it had once possessed when life had coursed though its veins. What might a man do with such a seed? Fabius intended to find out.
Fabius Bile (with reverence): "Oh... What have they made of you, father of my brothers?"
He traced patterns in the stasis field with his fingers. 
Fabius Bile: "A work of incandescent29 artistry rendered down into brute components. A thing of sublime30 clockwork made into base meat. Look at it, Haruk! Look and see how they waste him. It is a crime and a sin, this enshrinement of useful fodder31. And for what?"
Fabius looked at Haruk. 
Fabius Bile: "Tell me, am I weeping?"
Haruk (speaking hard): "No..."
Fabius Bile (satisfied): "Good... It will be a waste of fluid to do so. An excess of emotion is as much a weakness as a lack of it. Haruk, note that in the logs and make it your guiding philosophy. A fire must burn at the correct temperature. If it grows too hot, it will consume all of the available oxygen and snuff32 itself. If it burns too low, it will die down. Either way it ceases to be a fire. You see?"
Fabius gestured elegantly. 
Haruk (speaking hard): "Yes..."
Fabius Bile: "The trick you see is to find that correct temperature and then to maintain it indefinitely. Sentiment must be balanced by pragmatism, ruthlessness by mercy. You yourself are a living example of that, Haruk. I spared you did I not? When I could have punished you for your transgressions33 which were many and exceedingly varied".
Fabius turned and poked a finger into the scarred seemed flesh between Haruk's mismatched eyes. 
Fabius Bile: "When you attacked me in my field laboratories on Nausis and then later on the ice flows of Tangik, I could have put an end to your miserable life, but I stilled my hand, because we had once been colleagues, if not friends. And because it will be a crime to waste skills such as yours". 
He smacked the stasis field with a fist, causing it to spark and shimmer. 
Fabius Bile: "Just as it will be a crime to waste this... Do you understand, Haruk?"
Haruk blinked. He said nothing though his eyes spoke volumes. There was a whole library of emotion locked in his reinforced skull, the pages of which were never to be revealed. 
Fabius Bile: "I saved you, Haruk. I saved you from the bolt shell... My bolt shell in your brain, as well as the drilling song of those barbaric cortical34 implants you display with such ill-judged pride" 
Fabius smiled. 
Fabius Bile: "I closed that particular music-box, didn't I?"
Haruk (speaking hard): "Yes...you... did..."
Fabius Bile: "Yes, even as I did for you, my friend, I shall make something better of this wreckage". 
Fabius turned back to the stasis field.
Fabius Bile: "What the gods have ruined I shall repair". 
His thin lips twisted into a bitter sneer35. 
Fabius Bile (laughing): "Ha! Gods... The sheer hubris36 of their term. There are no gods..."
He prodded37 the field. 
Fabius Bile: "That was what we were fighting for, Haruk. Your gene-father understood that as did mine, I think. We were liberators, freeing the galaxy from superstition and madness. Only Horus had to go and welcome it back in, didn't he? Making ill-considered pacts with multidimensional intelligences that feed on the gullible38 and the fearful alike. And now look at us, Haruk. Look at what we have made of ourselves. Barbarians, beasts and fools. Well, someone has to get us going in the right direction again".
Haruk (speaking hard): "Yes..."
Fabius Bile: "Position heal thyself and everyone else value at it. The responsibility falls to me as the only sane man left in this benighted universe. I shall lift my life high and guide my fellows from out of the grim darkness". 
He smiled.
Fabius Bile: "It's the idealist in me, I think".
He hesitated and then glanced at Haruk.
Fabius Bile: "Hm... Strike that from the notes. I'd rather not have such naivety preserved, I think". 
He looked back at the remains of the Warmaster and his smile faded. Old hurts, old disagreements rose to the fore as he met the sightless gaze of Horus Lupercal and he closed his eyes. He'd been so close, so often. 
He looked at Haruk, once the former Apothecary had been just another obstacle placed in his path by enemies both mortal and otherwise. Now the World Eater was a member of his Consortium alongside the others Fabius had culled39 from the squabbling40 legions which even now battled far above him. He had sort out the pearls amongst the muck41 and cultivated them, giving them a purpose beyond the petty ambitions of warlords and would-be tyrants. His purpose... 
Soon others would follow. They would see that he was right, that his was the only way forward and they would join him. The Great Crusade would continue, all failures and missteps forgotten. The galaxy would burn and from its ashes would rise a new people, brought to apotheosis by his ministrations. 
Fabius Bile: "Yes... I shall bring them out of the darkness".
He stared at the dead thing in the stasis field. 
Fabius Bile: "Whether they like it or not". 
Fabius clapped his hands together. He could hear the savage pounding of the orbital bombardment and the roar of bolters as his followers swept the monument clean of life. It sounded to him like music, like the drums of war and celebration. 
Fabius Bile smiled.  
Fabius Bile: "I have much work to do".