ON MOURNFUL WINGS Simon Spurrier THE SKY BECAME a mirror, reflecting the ocean's anger. Tangled clouds flexed and boiled, wrestling for supremacy of the horizon. A wall of wind and dust and water ripped from the maelstrom like a talon snatching at the land. Someone screamed. Everyone died. ICA LURCHED AWAKE, the memory of screaming voices withdrawing into his mind. Around him the glider shuddered, inexpertly-fitted fuselage protesting at the pressures beyond. A rusted bolt dropped from the seal above his head and clattered on the floor. He couldn't bring himself to care. Dalus slept fitfully beside him. Ica wondered if he shared his twin's dark-rimmed eyes, prematurely lined features and weary, malnourished complexion. Probably. Sleep had become tortuous since… since then. Dalus mumbled and fidgeted in his uncomfortable seat, disturbed. The glider's descent became more pronounced and several passengers, all boys of thirteen, whispered urgent prayers of protection. A tortured creak announced the deployment of ancient landing-gear. Let it break, said a voice in Ica's head. Let it hit the runway and splinter into a thousand pieces. Let us spin along that narrow strip of plascrete above Table City, detonating like a messy citrusbloom and sitting there, half-buried under granite landslides, flaming and screaming and dying. There had been a priest in the tiny Ecclesiarchy chapel at Kultoom, a priest with one eye and one flickering ocular implant. He had scars on both cheeks and the bulge of dog-tags concealed beneath his sackcloth robes. Sitting there in the shuddering glider, wishing for oblivion, Ica remembered the priest's words with a guilty wince. 'Seek not escape from misery in death,' the voice droned, eye clicking and whirring in the gloom, 'for He That Is Most Mighty gathers-not the Selfish Dead to his side.' The priest was dead now. Everyone in Kultoom was dead now. THE GLIDER LANDED amid the rain-lashed chimneys of Table City with the baby-scream of salt-clogged brakes. Its confused passengers disembarked meekly. The principal city of Gathis II was a desolate metropolis: a scaled-up echo of the tribal communities and lugubrious villages dotting the few areas of planetary dry-land. Ramshackle dwellings clustered around one another for protection, smeared with the planet's only resource: chamack oil. Produced from the pulped remains of chamack weed, the viscous sludge was exported by the Administratum as a cheap but foul-smelling sealant. Day and night the cargo gliders ferried their odoriferous loads from distant island-tribes, a whole year's harvest barely filling a single glider. Competition for access to the aquatic plantations was fierce and regularly bloody. Ica pushed his face against rain-splattered blast-shields as an enormous vessel lifted from the ground, clouds of dust writhing like gaseous tendrils. 'Wonder where they go?' Dalus said, tired-looking eyes tracking the slab of metal into the brooding rain clouds. Ica nodded. Inside, a voice said: It doesn't matter. Nothing matters. 'Keep moving!' someone called, and both twins returned to the winding line of youths, herded along by men in thick rain-cloaks. They trudged through the skyport, between looming parades of Imperial ships with their massive, mysterious engines. 'Question not your lot in this life,' the priest had said, dead voice echoing through Ica's mind. 'Be content to serve Him-Upon-The-Throne - however humble your station.' Along the line Ica could see inquisitive eyes goggling at the gargantuan treasures looming on either side. Their expressions said, ''How do they work?'' ''Where do they go?'' ''What's out there?'' But they'd never know; never leave the rain-pocked surfaces of Gathis; never see the stars. And nothing they had ever done would be remembered. A building loomed ahead, archaic facade crumbling. Its steep sides, surmounted by spines and sneering gargoyles, stood incongruous among the surrounding dockyards. With growing unease Ica realised the youths were headed directly for a gaping set of loading doors on the building's side. Above, carved from vast stone slabs, stretching in a magnificent halo of angular symmetry, was a set of stylised feathers, angular and black. Not the graceful arcs of Administratum heraldry, with their sweeping curves and adamantium omegas; but rather squared and clipped, arranged in a brutal phalanx. And at the crux of the jagged raptor-wings, watching with mute melancholia, an ivory-white death-masque cast its gaze down upon the column of youths. A winged skull. THE SKY RUMBLED distantly. The twins barely bothered to look-up. 'Another storm,' Dalus grumbled, tinkering with his stretch-wings. Ica pushed at a ratchet joint and nodded. 'Mountain ghosts having a brawl, father?' he grinned. The twins' father smiled, features creasing like old leather. He leaned over Ica's shoulder and helped tighten the wing-brace, tousling his son's hair warmly. 'That they are, son.' Across the room, Dalus watched the movement closely, then returned to improving his glider with renewed vigour. ICA HAD NEVER seen so many people. The interior of the building seemed endless ebony horizons pulling away on every side, gazing down upon an infinite ocean of young, bewildered heads. 'Every male of age thirteen to be present at Table City upon the thirteenth day of the thirteenth lunar month of every year. By Imperial command.' Every year the same: the gliders would come to Kultoom and collect the youths. And sometimes, once in every decade, not all of them would return. Inducted into the Imperial Navy, the rumour went. Or sent as cannon fodder to fight the orks. Or offered as a sacrifice to the Emperor's glory. Or any one of a thousand different possibilities, all of them rich with uncertainty and legend. Sent to appease the angry mountain ghosts, one rumour went. Something far above screeched like a craghawk and a shape parted with the ceiling-shadows, resolving into a metallic platform suspended upon chains. The murmuring of thousands of youths arose throughout the chamber, a choir of fear and uncertainty. The platform creaked to a pendulous halt far above and silence spread like a net. The air was greasy and tense, spiderlegs scuttled up the spine and static whispered through the ears and nose. Spotlights flickered to life, each a miniature thunderclap. 'Look,' Dalus said. Ica followed his gaze and there, threading through the crowd, were the black-robed minders who had ferried the boys from the gliders. Every so often they would stop, lizardlike, and tilt their heads, then scurry off again in another direction. Sometimes they'd look up at the distant platform as if someone stood there, watching, directing. And then they began to Choose. A hand would reach out and tap at a shoulder, blindly feeling for - what? And then three or four of the ebony figures would close in, dragging away each victim in a knot of limbs. Ica had expected shrill pleas for help: oh Emperor, don't let them take me! But no, those who were taken seemed placid, cowed somehow. Not one of them cried out. Then something stabbed at Ica's mind. Something that crawled through his brain and knew everything. Something that said, ''Yes, you're correct not to care. You're already dead, and you know it.'' And when black-gloved hands closed on his arms and hauled him away into the shadows, he didn't cry out in alarm. He didn't even mutter a prayer under his breath because, after all, what good what it do? UNCONSCIOUS AND DRIFTING, Ica knew he'd never see Kultoom again. Never net slippery lacefish from his father's dirigible, never glide in frantic circles above the tribe's submerged chamack-patch, watching for theft-raids from neighbouring tribes. There was no Kultoom to go back to. The dirigible had been pulped and hurled away into the shrieking skies. The other tribes had come and, unchallenged, plundered his ancestors' Chamack nurseries. Someone slapped him, hard, and he vomited. Next to him, Dalus said ''aack'' and dribbled blood. To each side of Ica unconscious youths were dragged awake with punches and kicks, courtesy of those same black-cloaked figures from before. The one looming over grunted, satisfied with Ica's alertness, and stepped clear. The twins traded uncertain looks. They knelt in a line of some thirty youths - those dragged from the building in the skyport, Ica supposed - on a rocky plateau. All around them towered the colossal crags of the Razorpeak Mountains, casting their ugly shadows far across the churning seas below. Somewhere down there, Ica thought, is Table City, where thousands of bewildered youths are climbing back aboard gliders for the journey home, thanking the Emperor and wondering what had happened to those few who had been taken… Ica tried to remember how he'd arrived at this dizzying place, but his memory faltered. There had been pain, briefly, then the vaguest sensation of machinery and engines - yes, he recognised the sound from the skyport - rising in volume. To himself, he said, 'It doesn't matter how you got here. Nobody cares.' 'Chapter serfs,' said a voice, thick with authority, 'that will be all.' The black-robed men bowed mechanically, quickly descending a stairway hewn into the mountainside. Otherwise, the outcrop was empty, dwarfed by its parent mountain, with only a small cave in the vertical cliff-face nearby that could have concealed a person. Ica fixed his eyes on the rocky maw and tried to focus. Something moved inside. Something that twisted the light like mercury. Something huge that somehow shifted with fluid grace. Something that hulked forwards, polished facets decorated by ivory whorls, smouldering with reflected light. Panelled mirror-gauntlets curled around a blood-red staff and somewhere in the centre of the whole impossible being a pair of melancholy eyes stared out with incalculable wisdom and sadness. A metallic hood, pressed down over the sallow face, seemed to crackle with barely restrained energy. 'I am Thryn,' the behemoth said, mournful voice shivering along Ica's spine, 'Librarian Secundus of the Adeptus Astartes.' The words meant nothing. Faces twisted by misery and fear, the youths stared as the Librarian took another step, mirror-armour shattering the light. Shoulder guards flexed, and Ica glimpsed again the mournful skull with its stretched wings, engraved upon the metal. The man's pale face drilled its hard gaze into each boy in turn. 'You have been chosen,' the voice said, 'alone among thousands. Chosen not for your strength or your courage, not for your souls or your bodies. You've been chosen because you, each in their way, already understand an immutable truth. You understand that you are already dead.' Somewhere to Ica's left, a boy sobbed quietly. 'Disaster, loss, injury… a lifetime of exclusion and isolation - these are the memories you share. You must understand that whatever you feel, however great your grief, it is a mere nothing: an invisible fraction of the despair shared throughout our Imperium.' Again something scuttled into Ica's brain, twitching its way through his memories. And when next the Librarian spoke, the voice seemed to enter Ica's very mind. 'You've been brought here to die. You must understand. Cherish your mortality. Cling to it. Today each of you will perish with such certainty that you are, in a sense, already dead - just marking-time until the end. Behold the despair.' And the ethereal fingers in Ica's skull sunk deeper and twisted, bringing-forth… …screaming voices, and his mother's fingernails broke, one after another, until her grip was wrenched clear and she diminished into the maelstrom, screaming his name for help… …and howling creatures with scarlet eyes and green skin like rotten leather clashed their tusks as women screamed and babies cried and cities burnt… …and his father's workshop disintegrated, vindictive lightning obliterating the chaff as it circulated up into the banshee skies… …and multitudes were slaughtered, and monstrosities stalked through bloody streets, chitin clacking, and not one horrified scream was louder than any other, and to every sufferer the world is ended, their life destroyed, and it was happening a million times over… …and Ica screamed and Dalus screamed, although neither was heard, and outside the chapel detonated in a whirligig storm of masonry, and somewhere amongst the debris the old priest thrashed his limbs as the candles he'd so recently lit impaled him before racing-away on the wind… …and the ghostly vessel swept past in a multicoloured broadside, unleashing colossal energies in an actinic torpedo-volley that punched gaping mouths into the blast-shields, and a hundred thousand human ants wordlessly shrieked the last of their oxygen into the void… …and they didn't see their father die, but they heard his voice as the gather-hall sealant crumbled like dry leaves and haemorrhaged into the hurricane, and his howl of terror seemed to go on for ever and ever and ever and… …and the lightning claws, writhing with evil, moved faster than the eye can follow, flaring against His force sword's rune-patterned blade, and when finally the ivory power armour splintered and the Warmaster's talons reached inside, on a million worlds a trillion humans sank to their knees, and nothing would ever be the same again… …and the despair never ended. ICA OPENED HIS eyes and prayed for death. All that he was would be nothing. The suffering of the universe eclipsed his own utterly. Nothing mattered. 'You will enter the cave,' the Librarian ordered, words alive with psychic energy, impossible to disobey. 'You'll enter the cave and inside you will die. You will rise through caverns of fear and violence, and with every footstep you draw closer to oblivion.' The grave voice halted, and Ica tried to stand, turning to see his brother already rising up. As usual. Always first. Others followed, desperate to obey the Librarian's command despite their aching minds. Thryn's silver gauntlet lifted, unfolded a single digit, and silently directed the youths into the cave. One boy, further along the line, didn't stand. His eyes stared blankly, wide and lifeless. Ica understood. The weight of sadness had been too much to bear. ICA PINWHEELED HIGHER, stretchwings fully extended. Every arm movement tilted him fractionally, sending him soaring above and across Kultoom Island. 'Good, Ica! Good!' his father shouted up, cupped hands framing his proud face. 'Don't overbalance - that's it! Perfect!' Above Ica Dalus glided in a series of long, lazy spirals. 'How's this, father?' he called, voice almost lost in the chasm of air. The twins' father glanced away from Ica momentarily, nodding. 'Good.' Ica peered up at his brother to exchange a smile in celebration of their first flight. But Dalus was frowning, and when he noticed Ica staring, his smile was too brief and too forced, before he manoeuvred his glider away. TORCHES FLICKERED IN brackets, flames guttering with each movement of the air. Finally all the youths were inside, silent and cowed by the psychic trauma. Inside Ica's head, a voice said: All dead, dead, dead, dead, dead… Then the door closed. One moment the daylight streamed in through the cave-entrance, framing the wide figure of the Librarian against the rain-streaked outcrop beyond. The next; iron blast doors slipped from grooves with a thunderclap clang and sealed the youths inside. The youths exchanged uncertain glances. One boy, voice barely more than a whisper, said 'W-what's happening..?' Nobody replied. Something hissed, and Ica turned to find water bubbling from a crack in the floor, veils of steam rising from the rapidly-enlarging puddle. Nearby, Dalus sniffed at the air. 'Stinks of sulphur…' Again the voice invaded Ica's brain, the measured tones of Librarian Thryn filling his mind with its patient, mournful inflection. All the youths tilted their heads as if listening intently, and Ica knew that they too heard Thryn's words. 'Millennia ago, an object fell from the sky among the Razorpeak Mountains. Its impact shattered-apart the crust of this planet, destabilising it forever. It - like us - dies one second at a time. One day its core will solidify, its oceans will freeze and its people will starve. Until then it whiles away its mortality with fiery temper tantrums and indignant earthquakes. You are standing at the centre of this world's deepest despair.' Ica returned his gaze to the growing puddle at his feet, now rising in a small hump of boiling fluid. He could feel its heat, even standing back. Across the floor of the chamber another fissure began to weep. 'Once every year,' the voice droned, 'lava-flows beneath the Razorpeaks vent into the tunnels beneath your feet, filling them with scalding water. Within an hour this cavern, and all those above it, will be submerged. You will breathe boiling fluid. You will gag silently as the air is burnt from your lungs. This chamber has a single exit. Take it, don't take it. Either way, you have minutes to live.' The psychic contact ended, leaving Ica dizzy and nauseous. An orifice in the rock nearby gurgled, hissed, then roared in incandescent fury. Water exploded forth, a mallet striking at the rockface and shattering into a million shards of liquid and steam. A boy screamed, vapour rising from his blistering face like a shroud. And Ica thought: So, this is it. Better to die now. Welcome it. Cherish it. Except… Except there's nothing left to lose, and dying in the next chamber is as good as dying here… Frowning, not understanding why, Ica drove himself onwards, stepping towards the tunnel leading up and away. As quick as a wraith, Dalus streaked past him, rushing to be the first through. And behind them came the others, eyes dead, driven on only by the realisation that it made no difference. The boy who clutched at his face, shrieking unintelligibly in pain, was left behind, cries becoming fainter and fainter, finally falling silent with a single water-choked sob. ON THE DAY It happened, the twins had sneaked into the gather-hall through the broken synthiplex panel at its rear. Outside it was raining, and the droplets hammered on the building's corrugated roof like a harvest of gallberries, all falling at once. Outside the people of Kultoom tribe, as normal, laboured away their small, blind little lives. Ica and Dalus were mighty kings, contesting the hand of a fair princess. They were hero and villain, struggling for dominance. They were Emperor and Horus (although neither knew which was which). They were alien and human, or heretic and redeemer, or mutant and puritan. Throughout the deserted hallway their wooden Jenrak-staves clacked together, whistling in broad sweeps and jabbing viciously. Giggling uncontrollably, feinting and lunging, Ica and Dalus were warriors. And then their father heard their voices and crawled inside, demanding to know why they'd left their chores. Dalus had said they'd wanted to practise so they could defend the Chamack from neighbour tribes, but their father had seen it was a lie. He grinned slyly, and said, 'Fine. So, fight.' So, beneath his stern gaze they'd fought. But the fun was gone, and every lunge that found its mark was rewarded with a curt ''Good'', and every clumsy back-step elicited a burning silence from the gallery where their father stood, shaking his head or muttering. And it wasn't a game anymore, so Ica drove his stave deep into Dalus's stomach. 'A good hit,' their father said. And it wasn't fun anymore, so Dalus battered-aside Ica's defence and smashed his brother across the cheek. Ica dropped to the floor, blood ebbing from his nose. And their father rushed to Ica, checking for broken bones. And he looked up at Dalus, standing over in a confusion of shame and triumph, and said: 'Stupid boy. Always going too far!' And outside the thunder rumbled, and Kultoom waited for death. BONES CLATTERED ON the floor with every footfall. Steam churned behind the youths like the breath of a daemon, hot in pursuit of its prey. They drew closer together, staring into the face of razor-sided agony. The cavern was bisected by a living cobweb of mossy lichen, clinging to strand upon strand of fibrous stalks and coiling roots. Another tunnel, again leading upwards, yawned on the other side of the mossy partition. But the web, glowing with bacterial luminescence, bore thorns. As long as Ica's finger, they sprouted like butcher-hook talons, curved like scimitars and equally as sharp. Tiny spines beneath the hood of every blade waited to barb any hapless victim, lacerating flesh and splitting sinews. The forest of daggers, five deep, reached from cavern wall to cavern wall, from stalactite-strewn ceiling to uneven floor. Somewhere, deeply enmeshed, hung a skeleton - its empty eyes watching Ica, saying, you're like me. You're all like me. All dead. The tunnel from the previous chamber was already submerged, scampering air bubbles cratering the swiftly rising surface. Clouds of steam, reeking of sulphur, coiled insidiously amongst the boys. Ica pushed himself forwards. Once the impetus to move on had taken root, once the inertia - urging him to give up - had been overcome, driving forwards was not so hard. He turned and, yes, there was Dalus, already approaching the dagger-thorns. What difference does it make? Ica pondered. Might as well. The first thorn ripped apart his thin jerkin and prized open his skin, a frosty fire that blossomed warmly. The next hooked into his shoulder, scraping the dark places inside against bone and nerves. He groaned in pain and gritted his teeth. Keep going. The next thorn turned his thigh into a ploughfield of flesh-ribbons. Something hit his cheek and he glanced-around, where a small youth sprayed arterial redness from a gaping wound in his neck. The boy's eyes rolled upwards with something like relief. Behind Ica, others were pushing through, moaning with each new open wound. To the rear somebody screamed as the boiling water trickled-over the lip of the previous tunnel and scorched an unshielded foot. Ahead, Dalus pushed further into the tangle, incisions covering his arms and legs. He gripped at a branch, hauling himself forwards - only stopping to inspect his lacerated palms. He glanced briefly at Ica, as if checking his brother was still there, still watching, then frowned and barged his way forwards. A thorn dragged itself along Ica's brow, and he blinked against the red wetness oozing into his eye. He moved forwards, sliced and diced, not caring; feeling the pain with abstract distance - registering its presence but not its effect. An arm broke free, a chequerboard of cuts marking its surface. A growl of triumph ahead broadcast Dalus's release. Dalus stopped and turned, panting and bleeding, as inch by inch his brother wrestled free. Something splintered, a mossy crack of parting-twigs, and Ica stepped-clear. He turned to look back at the others, some almost liberated, others hopelessly enmeshed, watching with eyes already rheumy and lifeless in death. Some youths hadn't even tried to get through. They stood or sat on the other side, impassively waiting for their doom as the water bubbled ever higher. Ica nodded, understanding how they felt, and turned away. Dalus was already climbing towards the next tunnel. Ica blinked bloody tears from his eyes and followed. THE SKY QUAKED, electric ribbons chasing across the horizon. Wind plucked at what few trees grew on Kultoom Island, eliciting a creaking and groaning that vocalised the tribe's anxiety. Tribesmen looked to the churning clouds and spat, cursing the dismal weather. The priest, dribbling in his zealousness, shouted a prayer to the Emperor, vying with the thunder to be heard. His oratory finished, he entered the chapel and sealed the door. Windkites were hastily rescued from mid-air gyrations; chamack harvesters were moored securely, and everywhere was the sound of slamming shutters and doors. The sky went black. In their hut, Ica and Dalus, footfalls heavy with sulky indignation, descended into the damp darkness of the cellar. Their mother's voice followed after. '…and stay down there 'til you learn obedience! If you can't be trusted to finish your chores, seems to me you can't be trusted to use a wing-glider either!' At this the twins both gagged in alarm, turning to the cross-armed silhouette at the top of the stairs with a cry, 'But-!' 'But nothing, night take you! No gliding for a month! And now your father's out in the rain, fixing-up that Emperor-damned panel, and who knows where he'll find cover if the storm hits and how we'll survive if he's hurt and why can't you be obedient like Father Lemuel says and…' The whinnying voice faded-away as the door slammed and their mother stalked off to bolt the shutters. In the darkness, Ica sniffed back the blood in his nose. He could feel Dalus glaring across the room. THROUGH CHAMBERS AND caverns, they ran. Scalding water churned from every crevice, dousing the flickering torches one-by-one. In one chamber the floor was a gravelpit of smouldering embers, heated by fire-red magma that cooled, sludgelike, in scattered puddles. The youths - those who dared - scampered across in a flurry of yelps and explosions of sparks. Some fell with a howl into the curdling lava, clawing at the air and shrieking until their skin charred and their lungs filled with fire. In one cavern a firestorm of shrapnel and smoke burst from some hidden alcove among the stalactites, reacting to the unblinking red eye of a motion-sensor embedded in one wall. Some of the adolescents lurked at the room's entrance, dividing their terrified glances between the rising water behind and that glaring ruby light, choosing who would live and who would die. Others rushed by, ducking and dodging. Their flesh and bone was dissolved in the resulting whirlwind of metal, screams ripped away in a rush of smoke and dust. A few - those who neither hesitated nor rushed - made it through. In one chamber the ground gave way to an echoing chasm lined by splintered bones. Only by leaping across then scrabbling amid the jagged handholds of the opposite rock face could the youths pass. The screams of those who fell, punctuated by the splintering cracks of impact, echoed throughout the hollow-mountain forever. And always the water rose, dogging at their heels, curling its tendrils, wrapping everything in a sulphurous haze. The mountain filled from the base upwards, and with every step the remaining air grew hotter and more stifling. Ica, muscles protesting, passed obstacle after obstacle, forever convinced that each test would be the last. Only by accepting his own death could he march across scorching coal fragments. Only by understanding he was nothing could he amble unhurriedly past an unflickering motion-sensor. Only by knowing that he was dying one second at a time, that he was already dead and forgotten, that nothing he had ever done would be remembered, could he hurl himself into the abyss, then clamber, hands and arms lacerated, to his feet. He was surviving and he didn't care. And all the time, driven on like some unstoppable dervish, Dalus was one step ahead; turning back to watch Ica but never rushing to his aid when he faltered. Their clothes hung in shreds, their skin was a patchwork of scrapes and cuts. Once Dalus had turned to Ica, eyes burning, and said: 'Try to keep up, brother…' And then they passed through the final cavern and entered a tunnel that twisted and grew narrower, coiling slowly downwards. Ica, palms and knees shredded, struggled to keep sight of his brother's retreating form. 'Dalus?' he panted. 'T-the water, it'll…' 'I know,' came the curt reply. 'It'll come down after us.' The tunnel grew steeper, walls closing-in until the brothers writhed, wormlike, using only toes and elbows. How many youths remained behind them Ica didn't know. He couldn't turn his head, even if there were light. He was blind, a maggot within a mountain. The ghost of a scream filtered-along the corkscrew tunnel: a million miles away. Somewhere far above scalding water lapped at the edge of the descending shaft, waiting… Ica could see it happening, in his mind. The water - at first only a few droplets - would ebb its way over the lip of the cavern. As it rose the trickle became a stream, then a river, then a tsunami that tumbled down through the passageway, growing faster and faster as the walls grew closer, roaring in sulphurous fury. And then there was light. Hurting Ica's eyes, making him wince. And there was Dalus, worming his way from the tunnel, shredded legs kicking as he exited. And the mountain shook as the waterspout filled up, and all around the air began to rush by, driven on by the wall of liquid rage charging at his heels. And the sun didn't look sweet when he saw it, and he felt no relief at the freshness of the air. He was still dead. Still forgotten. Only two other youths clambered from the tunnel behind them, faces pale and eyes ringed as if they had been existing underground for years. They stood on a ledge, jutting from a sheer rockface on the mountainside, and the ground fell away in all directions. The distant ocean was a pond of ripples from this height. And beyond, with sides so sheer that even the craghawks could find no nesting spots, was the Ghostmountain: the tallest of all the Razorpeaks, its very existence a toothy, snarled challenge to the clouds. Ica stared at it and murmured, 'Emperor preserve…' Its enormity compacted his misery, reminded him of his scale. You are nothing, he told himself. You are nothing and in a moment you will die, punched from this ledge by a fist of water. Maybe your bones will shatter at the impact, driving shards of ivory into your brain. Maybe you'll die quickly. Or maybe you'll be cannoned out into the air, screaming as the water burns your skin and your eyes dissolve. Maybe you'll plummet, arms thrashing, to the fanged rocks at the base of the mountain. Maybe you'll die in pain. Maybe you won't. But you'll die. It's so certain that you'll die, you might as well already be dead. And look, there's nowhere left to go. Nowhere left to run. And the mountain shook, and the water roared, and Ica remembered. His mother, screaming as the storm hit and the roof of the hut separated like a jigsaw, trying to wrench open the cellar door to seek sanctuary. She buried her fingernails in the rotten wood of the strut support as behind her the walls of the house went convex and shredded like paper. 'Look,' grunted Dalus curtly, returning Ica to reality. He pointed towards a tangled shape at the farthest corner of the ledge. A twisted morsel of canvas, stretched to near-tautness by a metal frame, protruded like a shark-fin. Other components - rusted spring mounts and ragged tail rudders, decaying tensile pins and mangled harness struts - lurked within the heap. 'Gliders…' Ica mumbled numbly. Behind him the mountain growled. And the voice in his head whispered: So you can go on. Might as well. Nothing to lose. Dalus was already beside the pile, snatching at the decaying apparatus, selecting the best glider kit. He hefted the concertina stretch wings onto his back and began buckling the harness around his chest, eyes glowering in determination. Ica, legs ready to collapse beneath the despair filling his mind, simply reached out a hand and dragged at whatever random assemblage it touched. The wings hung shredded and near-useless, the harness little more than crossed bandoliers of pleated chamack-twine. Doesn't matter. Put it on. The mountain bellowed, a bull-roar of fury. The air rushing from the tunnel-mouth became a physical force, pushing the twins backwards towards the edge. One of the other youths lunged for the pile of gliders, eyes wide. The final survivor simply stood and stared, waiting. Then the world was thrown on its head. KULTOOM TRIBE DIED. Kultoom Island shredded like an almost-dead body, thrashing itself uselessly, flailing at its tormentor and struggling to hold in its own viscera. The storm closed with hungry malevolence; anonymous and implacable. The universe, with no more regard than a man might have for an insect beneath his boot, reached out and expunged a population. WITH A COCKROACH snap the wind unfurled the tattered wings of Ica's glider and threw him across the distant ocean. From the corner of his madly-oscillating view he registered the mountainside erupting in a gargantuan waterspout, cascading downwards in sheets of rainbow-infested spray - but it was distant, unimportant. A scream dwindled on the howling wind. Then it was all gone: obliterated in a dizzying split-second, and when reality coalesced Ica was gliding erratically, stranded within a gulf of air. The breath, sucked from his lungs, returned in heaving gasps, his head pounding with the angry rhythm of his pulse. Nearby, fighting for stability, Dalus swooped past, stretch wings fully extended. Petulant turbulence buffeted Ica and he over-tilted, tumbling briefly in a flurry of mangled wings and tail blades. The descent flattened into an awkward, crippled equilibrium, doomed to fail before long. The third youth, who had snatched at the pile of gliders moments before the water thundered from the tunnel, cried out nearby. Ica's gaze darted sideways to see the ragged collection of components he'd selected parting like crumbling earth, fragmenting in a cloud of wafting fabrics and spinning shards of metal. The small shape at its epicentre, arms flailing uselessly, tumbled away towards the ocean. He screamed all the way. Dalus's trajectory levelled out, once again in front of Ica, and he turned to deliver another infuriating grin, sunken eyes twinkling in - what? Triumph? Then both twins stared forwards, driven-on by the furious gales ripping between the razorpeak summits. To fly into the wind was impossible, retaining balance and altitude was the only recourse. So, bloodied and scarred, exhausted physically and mentally, the twins were silent as before them the Ghostmountain loomed closer. AFTERWARDS, THE WORLD was black. Not the dull, dry blackness of a firestorm or some other act of violence, but rather the polished blackness of sea-slippery rock. The very earth had been torn apart, cleaved-up from the rocks below like a scalp from a skull. And yes, there was debris, but not much: no devastated huts or mangled vehicles, but rather scattered patches of dust that might once have been homes, or the splattered bloodspray of liquid metal, melted and hurled away by vicious lighting. Ica and Dalus crawled from the cellar that had become their burrow, and stared at all that was left of their lives. On the first day, and even the second, there was no real pain. The despair had yet to descend and instead they wandered the pulverised island in a fugue. On the third day the reality began to crystallise. They would cry occasionally, though somehow never enough to satisfy the hidden despair. The need to express, to vent, went unresolved. They could not bear to look at one another, nor speak. On the fourth day, when hunger began to cramp their stomachs, the numbness began to return. They would find some distraction or task - some beleaguered seabird or semi-successful fishing attempt - and all would seem normal, until the mind allowed itself to wander and the memory of… of events returned. And every time the pain would return: an endless loop of remembrance and reaction. On the fifth day the glider came. 'Every male of age thirteen to be present at Table City upon the thirteenth day of the thirteenth lunar month of every year. By Imperial command.' It almost passed over, sighting from its aerial vantage nothing but the wasted remains of a community: a tribe reduced to a naked rocky crag by the tempest-whims of an unstable world. But Dalus flashed light from a jagged shard of mirror at the distant wraith, and it began the long spiralling descent that would bring it to the last survivors of Kultoom Island. And they went aboard to die. TWICE ICA'S STRETCH wings hissed as fabric tore, and twice he found himself lurching impossibly to the left or right, preparing for the terminal descent to the waves below. Twice the voice in his mind said, 'Yes - let me die!' And twice he righted himself, somehow finding the stability to continue. The Ghostmountain no longer loomed across the horizon of the world. This close, it was the world. 'Where will we land, brother?' Ica called ahead to where Dalus effortlessly hung aloft. His brother didn't reply. Ica called out again, louder this time, 'I said, where wi—' 'I heard.' Dalus looked back, piercing his twin with a stare. 'And how should I know?' Then he adjusted his shoulders, dipped forward and streaked ahead. At times the wind seemed to reach underneath Ica, a seemingly gentle hand to cradle his exposed form, only to hurl him high into the air, or drop away from underneath, leaving him tumbling and helpless. At such moments only fatalistic momentum - the certainty that it made no difference whether one went on or gave in - allowed him to struggle against the pockets and troughs of resistance to stay level. Every second brought him closer to the Ghostmountain until it seemed to become a planet, tumbling across the horizon of Gathis, to inevitably collide, showering all of existence in chaotic planetary viscera and arterial lava. Ica found himself wishing it would, that he could ride the crest of that fiery cataclysm and burn out in the air, an insignificant spark. In his abstract state he barely felt the fingers of power that once more delved into his mind. He could barely summon the energy to retch, gagging uselessly at the psychic contact. The voice of Librarian Thryn entered his brain again, stabbing at the back of his eyeballs. 'There…' it hissed, and unbidden his eyes swivelled to a craggy rockface, where - if he winced against the stinging air and focused - he could make out a shadowy recess above a flat ledge. Another cave. Ahead he could see Dalus reacting similarly, face turning to the distant platform. So the twins tilted their exhausted, ruined bodies towards the ledge, and clumsily, awkwardly, descended. THE STONE FELT like a bed of feathers, welcoming and cushioning Ica's tumbling form. In some distant part of his brain he was aware of the ruinous landing, vaguely noting the spreading pain but unable to wince or groan. Dalus was already on his feet, of course. He cast off his stretch wings in a blur, then clenched his fists and punched the air in triumph. 'First!' he called-out to the mountain, spinning to stare at his panting brother with eyes full of madness. 'I beat you!' Ica stammered, uncertain. 'W-what?' 'I beat you. I came first.' Dalus's grin extended further-still, an ugly gash in his sallow, pale features. 'Now we'll die, b-but it won't matter because… because when we do you'll know I'm best, and the world will know I came first, and, and—' The grin became something else - a grimace of pain and rage which bubbled up from his eyes and sent tears streaking across his face until his voice cracked and he couldn't continue. Ica stared, astonished and terrified at his twin's tantrum, unable to understand. For the first time since he could remember Dalus looked like a child - shredded and exhausted by a hateful world - but a child nonetheless, with all the petulance and pettiness a child should command. Then the wind seemed to be rushing directly down upon their heads: a warm gale that grew hotter and hotter. Ica tilted his tired neck and there, descending on a mantle of smoke and superheated air, was Librarian Thryn. Like a pair of shimmering wings unfurling from his colossal shoulders, twin streams of heat diminished slowly until his massive feet crunched upon the rocks and his metallic form settled. 'Survivors…' he said, sunken eyes drinking-in their features. 'Survivors who are dead, and yet live. Hm. Have a care with feelings of relief, young ones. You'll die yet.' Ica struggled against the energy filling his brain, twisting his groans of exhaustion into words. 'W-why? Why do these things to us?' Thryn smiled, psychic hood crackling. 'Let us see…' he hissed. And the energies reached out and infiltrated the twins' minds, and they saw— Ica's mind was a mountainside. A descending slope of anguish that neither levelled off nor ended abruptly in a chasm of fatalism. It rushed onwards, descending too far into misery to ever consider turning about and reseating, yet too steep and unbroken to ever reach its suicidal conclusion. Ica's own life was worth nothing to him. To go on, unfeeling and uncaring, was just as easy as giving up. Librarian Thryn smiled to himself. Dalus's mind was a minefield of bitterness and pain. In every challenge, in every task, there was judgement. There was his father's attention, grudgingly given and rarely complimentary. There was his mother's love, distant and awkward. And there was Ica. Ica, his father's favourite. Ica, to whom his mother cried out before her death. Ica who was loved and spoilt. Ica who could do no wrong. Ica who was an hour older than he. Ica who would inherit their father's chamack. Ica who, by dint of sixty Emperor-damned minutes, mattered. Dalus's own life was worth nothing to him. All that mattered was outdoing his brother, coming first, finally demonstrating to his parents - far too late - that he the younger brother, he the runt, he the scorned and unloved and uncared-for, that he was the better! To go on, raging and jealous and desperate for attention, was far easier than giving up. Librarian Thryn frowned. WHEN REALITY RETURNED, the wind howled like a child. Ica opened his eyes to a world refracted by tears and Thryn's mournful voice filling his mind. 'All of creation suffers, young ones. Only in accepting our own mortality can we… make a difference. Only in bearing the burden of our failures can we find the strength to go on. Only in detachment from glory, or honour, or jealousy… from life itself can we hope to spare others from grief. We are Doom Eagles. And we are already dead.' A silver gauntlet raised to point at Ica, the extended digit filling his world. 'You may enter, young one. Enter and discover the Eyrie of the Doom Eagles. Enter in humble and thankful service of the Golden Throne. But remember: you have not survived, this day. You are dead now. Never forget.' And Ica stood, numbly. Nothing was real. Nothing mattered. The wind screamed, almost tearing him away into the abyss, and he staggered, step by step, into the gloom of the cave. Behind him, he knew, Librarian Thryn followed, his hulking frame stalking gracefully into the welcoming shadows beyond. And he didn't look back, but he could hear the blast door closing, shutting out the rain. He could hear the wind, growing stronger by the second. And he could hear his brother, sobbing gently. Moments before the blast door closed, moments before Ica's life as a peasant of Gathis ended and his non-life as a Doom Eagle began, he heard his twin cry out to the empty, aching universe: 'But I came first! It's not fair!' And Ica said to himself: No, it's not fair. It's life. The Ghostmountain sealed with a thump, and the twins, each in their own way, died.