This story is based off of works from Games-Workshop. I do not claim to own these works, only to have used them as a basis for my own work.
"Maleficus, Mei Archos"
By Andrew Carlson
One: "Mei Judicium"
There is nothing more fragile than the human mind. It floats inside its throne of flesh and bone, content that what may harm it lies only on the outside.
We need not fear what lies without when fear itself is the true assassin, destroying reasoning and common-sense. Deadlier still is what comes in the aftermath. Thoughts. Thousands, millions, trillions of thoughts. All of them 'what ifs' and 'maybes'. The lure of a 'what if' can destroy a man's resolve. The dominance of a 'maybe' can purge a man of common sense. These⦠'what ifs' and 'maybes' open doors to the heretical; the man will think of things he had never thought of before. Greed and betrayal will become necessary, at first only a tool, and eventually the goal itself.
A man's ideals can twist in many ways. I have witnessed it all around me, even among my peers in the Inquisition.
When a man such as myself devotes his life to hunting and purging the heretical, daemonic, and sinister, he can often neglect to recognise the very same evils within himself. When the time comes (if he is lucky enough to have it come at all) that he realizes his own evils, he must choose: purge himself of his own evils, letting the evil without grow and fester as it runs unchecked, or suppress his own faults and stay loyal to his task bestowed apon him by the God-Emperor himself.
What choice did I make? To this day I am still unsure. Perhaps it is my own uncertainty that lead to this madness, my unwillingness to commit to one decision my undoing.
And so there I lay on the cold deck plating of my personal cruiser, warp energy crackling all around me. My throne of flesh and bone defiled, I stared blankly at the bulkhead as the new ruler took its place within its temple of grey matter. It wasn't much different, I noted, except for a few small yet important points. Points I couldn't identify directly, but like any unseen but familiar form, I knew they were there. Slowly, I pulled my haggard form up off of the cold deck, raising my eyes up slowly to the leather seat in front of me, and then the star field beyond the cock pit control panel. The seat was swivelled to face me, and vaguely I could remember falling out of it.
Slowly, like a neophyte taking his first steps after genetic enhancement, I moved forward. My hand outstretched toward the seat, I found purchase and slid into it comfortably. As I cautiously swivelled the chair around to face the vast void of space, I could feel the invisible flow of the warp around me, still dispersing from the painful ordeal.
The thought that there must have been pain intrigued me; I had no recollection of what had happened, nor did I feel pain at the moment. Nevertheless, I knew that pain had been involved. In fact, pain was the focal point apon which the whole ordeal was initiated.
I moved my fingers over the panels, punching keys one by one. I soon determined my coordinates and found that I was more than a light year from my best educated guess, the Eternus system. I remembered leaving there only days before, but it suddenly ocurred to me that I had no idea how long I had been passed out on the deck. Quickly I consulted the chronometer and with a quick intake of breath, I blinked.
8-432634.M41.
Nearly a standard month since last I checked the date.
In a blur, my hand was apon my face, inspecting my chin. No facial hair was evident, save for the sideburns that extended down my jaw line. My body had not suffered the effects of such a length of time, yet the chronometer told me I had spent nearly a month face down on the deck of my ship.
Wearily, I placed my hands on the control panel again and punched in the coordinates for the Eternus system. The plasma engines hummed to life, the deck plates beginning to reverberate underneath my boots quietly. Slowly but surely the star field shifted as the ship changed course, and the primal roar of the plasma engines deepened as the ship sped forward.
Eventually the warp energies dispersed, and I shuddered as I suddenly felt very alone in the cold void.
