Chapter 3.

The Diurnal Vault, Arx Angelicum, Baal

Lucius Antros studied the pieced arranged before him. They were ornamental blades, hundreds of them, no bigger than a fingernail and balanced on a metal armature. The armature was constructed in the shape of a winged figure that some claimed was a likeness of the Angel Sanguinius. He had played memoriam since he was a neophyte and its complexity never ceased to relax him. His breath grew slower and deeper as he played and the questions in his head became less frantic, as though his doubts found respite in the game. The rules were designed to rid one of distractions and focus the mind. And it was almost working.

Seated opposite him, across a small stone table, was his regular opponents: Lord Mephiston and Mariah. The Chief Librarian was rigid with concentration, staring at the game. He had not moved for several minutes and every time Antros tried to study him Mariah moved closer. He looked more intense than Antros had ever seen him. Mephiston always maintained a reptilian stillness but this was different – harder, the quiet more ominous. It had only been a matter of months since the tech-priests had given Mephiston and Mariah their surgical blessings, cutting back their black carapace, their flesh and even their mind according to the precepts of their master, Archmagos Cawl. Mephiston and Mariah are now Primaris. The process has utterly transformed them. Antros had travelled half the galaxy with Mephiston and Mariah but now he barely felt like he knew them.

Finally Mephiston clicked one of the blades into place and looked up at Antros.

All three of them could feel the tension in the room. The galaxy was at the point of collapse, besieged on all sides by daemonic incursions and plagues of mutations. The Blood Angels home world had been sundered from the light of Holy Terror, left to stand watch over the darkness of Imperium Nihilus. And Mephiston and Mariah had invited Antros to play a game of memoriam. There was clearly something on his mind. Every time Mephiston wanted to broach a subject but could not find the right words, he would invite Antros to play memoriam and the brood for hours before finally revealing whatever was troubling him.

"What brought you to the Arx Angelicum?" said Mephiston looking back at the game. After such a prolonged silence, the words were jarring and echoing around the hall.

Mephiston always spoke in an odd jumble of accents, his Gothic quiet unlike the rest of the Chapter's, and Antros wondered if he had heard him correctly, while Mariah shook her head. "Chief Librarian?"

"Why did you want to become and aspirant? You could have lived a natural, mortal life. What drew you to the Place of Champions? Why did you want to become a Blood Angel?"

Antros shook his head, taken aback by the question. "It has been son long… I have… it is hard to remember what I was like as a mortal man, before Corbulo handed me the chalice and I began my new life."

"Try to remember."

Antros knew his master well enough to sense that he had something of particular importance on his mind. He shrugged, doing his best to answer. "i… I wished for the power to change things, I suppose. I grew up in the wasters. Life was short and brutal. But even there we knew of the war you were fighting on our behalf – the war of angels and daemons. The war in the heavens." he strained to recall his life before his elevation to the Blood Angels but it was like peering into a well. "I knew I had abilities, abilities others did not. I wished to nurture that and put it to use. I wanted to have an impact. I saw my brothers and sisters die unnoticed, with no purpose or influence. I wanted to make a difference."

Mephiston was watching him closely and Antros looked away, wondering if the Chief Librarian was trying to read his thoughts. In the years before their recent battles, the years before the attacks on Baal, Antros had harboured doubts about his great mentor, troubled by the wayward nature of his gift. Did Mephiston know he had once doubted him? Since the tech-priests had remade Mephiston, Antros' concerns had faded. Mephiston seemed so sure of himself now, and in control of his peculiar powers. But perhaps Mephiston could still see the question that had once troubled Antros.

"Your mind is hidden from me," said Mephiston, guessing Antros' thoughts even if he was not reading them. "You certainly have power now. Power beyond anything even I could have predicted."

Antros wondered if Mephiston was pleased or concerned by that. Perhaps he had brought him here to judge him? How much had the Chief Librarian guesses? Antros had spent years searching for ways to aid Mephiston, new psychic disciplines, new methods of blood ritual. In the end, it came to nothing, but the research had changed his own mind – furthered his skills in ways he had not expected. He sensed that his powers now surpassed those of his other mentor, Gaius Rhacelus. Mephiston might be shocked, perhaps even angry. If he knew the full extent of what Antros had mastered, but there was no real shame in what he had done, so Antros was unsure why he guarded his secret so carefully. Why did he hide the power he had gained?

He looked for a sign of accusation in Mephiston's eyes but there was none.

+There is something off about him Mephiston, but I cant quit put my finger on it.+ Mariah warned Mephiston through the Nexus Link.

+I know, I cant read his thoughts, but I do know that you and me on this mission is gonna be different.+ Replied Mephiston.

Antros made the move he had been planning for nearly half an hour, winning the game in a manner he knew the Chief Librarian would not have predicted. It was not always wise to surprise Mephiston, but sometimes Antros could not resist giving him a glimpse of just how subtle his mind had become.

Mephiston starred at the game in silence. A slight flicker in his eyebrow was the only indication that he was surprised by what had happened.

The silence dragged on.

After a few minutes, Mephiston rose from the table, heading over to one of the cabinets that lined the room, reaching far up into the hidden, smoke-filled vaults overhead. Each of the drawers bore a brass plate, inscribed with delicate script. The language was unfamiliar to Antros but Mephiston ran his finger over the plaques until he found the one he was looking for.

He opened the door with a slight wave of his hand and it slid towards him on silent, oiled runners. Light flashed on his face as he reached in and lifted out a long metal staff, topped with a fist-sized blood stone clasped in a silver eagle's claw.

"The staff of Andomatius," said Mephiston, handing it to him.

"I have a staff, my lord"

"Not like this one, Andomatius was one of the earliest Chief Librarian's. And one of the most learned. He imbued this relic with a lifetime of study and devotion."

Antros stood and bowed, then took the staff. "My Lord… I am honoured… I..." He shook his head feeling even more ashamed of the doubts he had once entertained, of the secrets he still kept.

Mephiston held his gaze. "When the time comes, Antros you will make a difference." His tone was unclear and his words weighed with a meaning that Antros could not grasp. There was an uncharacteristic look in his eyes. It took Antros a moment to realise that it was concern. "Trust your soul to Andomatius." Mephiston tapped the intricately engraved staff. "He will not fail you. Even if you fail yourself."

Antros was unsure how to answer.

Mephiston lent closer. "I understand you, Lucius Antros."

Antros' hearts thudded in his chest. Even know, after all he had seen, he found it hard to meet the Chief Librarian's gaze. It was like starring into the void.

"And I believe in you," continued Mephiston."When the time comes, remember that."

Antros was too dazed to speak. Had the Chief Librarian truly seen into his soul? Had he seen this visions that haunted him – the childish, vainglorious dreams in which he saved both Mephiston, Mariah and the rest of the Blood Angels with a heroic act of faith?

He held the staff against his chest armour, full of pride. "I will remember, Chief Librarian."

Mephiston seemed on the verge of saying more. Then he waved his hand and the memoriam set folded itself away, chiming like a timepiece until the frame was no larger than a fist.

He waved to the door, dismissing Antros with words that might have been either a promise or an order.

"No more games."