AN : Sorry for the delay ! This one took a long time to write because, well, college. Yeah, that's pretty much it.
I would like to thank my reviewers, who give me the strength to ignore the many temptations that come with sitting before a computer with an Internet connection in favor of writing.
In this chapter, we do not see any action on Parecxis Alpha. Sorry. It will be for the next chapter. There were a couple of things I wanted to get out of the way, so to speak, before beginning to work on the Parecxis Campaign.
If you like this chapter, see something to correct for the next ones, or have an idea for a short story, please review or PM me.
That's all for this time ! I will see you again for the next chapter. It will take some time, since I want to do at least one more chapter of the Roboutian Heresy, and perhaps one or two short stories, before I return to the Forsaken Sons.
I do not own the Warhammer 40000 universe nor any of its characters. They belong to Games Workshop.
In the skies above, Jikaerus could see Parecxis Alpha. The hive-world was torn apart by the war between Marines, and the violence of the battle bled off in the Warp Storm to form a crimson aura around the planet. The former Apothecary itched to be there, to wet his blade with the blood of Guilliman's sons. Old habits died hard, but old grudges and hates died even harder, and the rivalry between the Alpha Legion and the Ultramarines was old indeed. But Arken had given his command, and the Fleshmaster had obeyed.
Parecxis Beta was a ruined wasteland. When the Forsaken Sons had descended upon the military world, a sizeable portion of the soldiers had turned against their comrades, their souls twisted by the touch of the Dark Prince of Chaos. While thousands of these new allies had died in the battle and many more had been taken to the Hand of Ruin for various purposes, the remnants had been left here to do as they pleased. It had only been a week since then, but already the difference was visible. With the reckless, suicidal abandon typical of the devotees of Slaanesh, they had torn up their own lair and devoured their stocks of food. Now, they were quickly approaching the point when hunger and madness would strip them of their last traces of humanity and turn them to cannibalism. Jikaerus had no wish to be here when that happened.
The Thunderhawk that had brought him here was back in orbit – no sense in risking both the craft and its pilot by ordering it to remain on the surface. That the Awakened One had spared one of the gunships for him while waging war against the Sons of Calth spoke at length of the importance of Jikaerus' mission. While the Fleshmaster didn't like the thought of committing such resources on the word of a single slave, he had to admit feeling a tingle of anticipation. This could be big. If he could find what he had come to find, if the slave could guide him to the mysterious temple … there were a lot of 'if', too many for his liking, but this could very well be an even greater boon for the warband than his work on Mulor Secundus.
His guide was a wretched and foul creature, a being that had once been a man and who called himself Mikail. Once a soldier of this very world, he had been touched by Slaanesh far more heavily than the rest of his fellow cultists. After being taken to the Hand of Ruin, he had been remade in the Hall of Asclepios by a former Emperor's Children called Melakor.
By the standards of the Fleshmasters, the transformation of the former Guardsman had been a success. For Jikaerus, though, it was a sloppy job, the ultimate result owing more to random chance and the act of one of the Dark Gods than any particular skill from Melakor. According to the data-banks of the Hall – unlike what had been seen amongst the Third Legions heretical researchers, the Fleshmasters kept meticulous records of their experiments – Mikail had been the only survivor of a batch of twenty test subjects. He had been used to test the implantation of a diminished version of Third Legion's genetic material, in an attempt to duplicate the method used by Jikaerus' own native Legion to enhance their mortal agents. While the death ratio had clearly proved that Fulgrim's gene-seed did not take kindly to being mingled with lesser blood, the one specimen into which the graft had taken had been a success beyond anything achieved so far by the other Fleshmasters.
Mikail was now some hybrid of Homo Sapiens and Homo Astartes, with a good dose of mutation added in. He stood taller than most unmodified mortals, his hair was a white mane similar to the one Fulgrim had sported before his ascension, and his body looked more like an ancient Greekian sculpture of humanoid perfection than anything natural could ever be. Yet despite what Jikaerus knew was an aesthetically pleasant appearance, the being repulsed him. There was a raw, malevolent hunger in his eyes, in the way he moved, that reminded Jikaerus of the drug addicts of his birthworld when they were in the throes of withdrawal. The touch of the Youngest God was strong on this mortal. That he was unburdended by the deformations that had befallen most of the other successful hybrids only meant his corruption was within. Still, Jikaerus needed him for the mission, so he bore the hybrid's presence as best he could.
At Mikail's belt hung the reason behind their presence here. The xenos knife had caught the attention of the Awakened One when he had come to the Fleshmasters' pits. There, they made their creations fight each other for study as well as entertainment. Mikail had been on a killing streak back then, bringing much honor to the one who had remade him. But Arken cared little for one more mortal warrior : he had asked where the blade had come from, then ordered the hybrid to lead Jikaerus to the object of their quest.
'How far are we from the temple ?' asked the Fleshmaster, speaking for the first time since their landing, two hours ago.
'Not far, Great One,' answered Mikail, his velvet voice somehow making the honorific sound like a mockery.
They were marching across a desert of dust that smelled like blood, narcotics and sweat. Even though he had sealed his armor's respiratory system seconds after first breathing the planet's air, the sickeningly sweet scent just wouldn't go away. His recycling systems were unable to purge it off his oxygen supply. Truly, the world around them was changing, reflecting the corruption in the souls of those who still walked it. The winds carried the sound of distant screams and whispers that had nothing to do with Jikaerus' latent psychosis, and the sand they kicked off with every step twisted in the air to form hypnotic patterns that defied gravity for a few seconds before collapsing out of existence. The thought that their destination would be even worse did little to lift Jikaerus' spirits.
Whatever else he was, Mikail was true to his word. They reached the top of a small dune a few minutes after Jikaerus' question, and the entrance of the temple was revealed. It was half-buried in the sand, only recently exposed by winds turned insane by the Warp Storm. Apart from orbit, it was impossible to find it unless you knew exactly where to look – and since the skies of the planet had been filled with the black smoke of burning fortresses for days, Jikaerus would never have found it without Mikail's help.
'Beautiful, is it not ?' asked the hybrid.
The Fleshmaster gave a non-committal growl. A facade of white stone emerged from the opposing dune, with great archways and symbols that had been protected from erosion by the sand for decades – perhaps even centuries. Empty alcoves that had once been filled with statues were spread in patterns that made Jikaerus' head ache, and several portions of the wall were crumbling after what the Traitor Marine's immediately identified as the marks of battle. There had been a battle fought at the gate of the temple a long, long time ago.
This was not beautiful, but he understood why it could appear to be so to a servant of the Dark Prince.
They descended into the depression, and entered the dark tunnel that led to the temple's insides. Though the corridors ought to be filled with sand, they were clear and free to cross. The obscurity was no obstacle to Jikaerus, but to his surprise, Mikail walked without hesitation, leading him deeper into the temple.
'I was unaware that your modifications included nightvision,' commented the former Alpha Legionary.
'They don't,' answered Mikail.
'They how can you walk like this here ?'
'When me and the others last came, we had lights with us, at least on the first part of our journey across this holy place – deeper, the temple has sources of light of its own. I remember each stone of the way, just as I remember each of the frescoes within perfectly.'
That sounded slightly ominous, thought Jikaerus. Unbidden memories rose to the surface of his mind : tales of the Emperor's Children's degeneration, of where and how it had begun – in a xenos temple, where laid an ancient and great power. He shook his head to force the thoughts away, but to no avail. Arken would have known, he forced himself to think. If this place was as cursed as the Laer's temple, the Awakened One would never have sent him here. Or would he ?
When they finally let him out, it had been the twentieth time they had woken him from the deep slumber of his coffin. Each time, he had been bound to a panel of cold metal, and they had cut him up, tearing open his flesh and placing foreign lumps of matter within his entrails before sewing him back together and returning him to the darkness of the coffin. Each time, images and words flooded through his brain. Knowledge of things he hadn't known even existed was poured in him. Just like his body, his mind was changing. Schematics of weapons and tactical diagrams were engraved in his nerves alongside an encyclopedic knowledge of the myriad wonders and horrors of the galaxy. And other, darker things as well.
Memories and images, visions of the dead warriors whose flesh was being used to reshape him. He saw the era of the Great Crusade through the eyes of a demigod, felt the kick of a bolter in his hands as he slaughtered countless Raven Guards, and watched the globe of Terra burn from orbit. Without the background knowledge he had already received by then, he would never have understood it.
The Horus Heresy. A time of legends, when gods had dueled and waged war against each other for control of Makind's destiny. He remembered it as if he had lived it, felt in his heart the reasons it had to be fought and tasted the bitterness of defeat on his tongue.
In the storm of memories, it was difficult to remember who he was. The drugs that flooded his organism to keep the pain at bearable level also weakened his mind, and he was only able to recall the black, lightless sky he had known all his life with effort. His name was buried under the names of a thousand worlds and dead heroes. Two things, though, were never lost to the fog of pain and foreign images during all his time in the coffin and under the butchers' knives. He remembered having a friend, closer to him than any blood brother he could have had. And he remembered having a foe, someone against whom he had sworn vengeance.
When the door of the coffin finally opened, he rose from it with his limbs still feeling sluggish from the drugs. Cables snapped free from where they had been connected to him, and he stood in the small space where his coffin had rested while he slept within it.
The first thing he saw was a panel of reflecting glass, fixed on the other end of the wall. It took him a few seconds to realize that the hulking giant looking at him with glaring eyes was himself. He was over two meters high, covered in muscles, his ribcage replaced by a solid plaque of bone and his skull grown to a size proportionate to his body. He had never had the opportunity to see his reflection before his transformation, but he doubted anyone of his past could recognize him. Surely he looked nothing like Mahlone of the Land …
Mahlone. Yes. That was his name. He remembered more clearly now, his body quickly purging the drugs from his bloodstream. He was Mahlone, and his home had been turned into hell by the manipulations of a fallen demigod in sea-green armor. He had endured the tests the demigods had put him through alongside his friend … Ygdal, yes, that was his sworn brother's name. And the two of them had been rewarded with ascension into the demigods' ranks.
He did not known which of the nine bloodlines he was now part of, but that wasn't surprising. He was rather sure that this was deliberate. The Forsaken Sons, as the army of demigods called itself, were made of scions of each of the Nine Primarchs united by the will of Arken the Awakened One. It made sense that they would want to spare the next generation the old rivalries of griefs.
Mahlone looked around him. His coffin was in the same small, cramped space where he had been brought after passing the tests. The mirror was the only difference. A dim lightbulb hung from the ceiling, barely enough for a human's eyes, but more than sufficient for an Astartes' vision, even one who had not spent his mortal life under the cover of the Dark. He could smell the metal of the walls and identify its alloy, and the distant smell of blood and corruption was an ever-present reminder of just what kind of ship the Hand of Ruin was. He was aboard a vessel of darkness, commanded by a man seeking to inflict pain and suffering on the rest of humanity. And he was supposed to fight under that man's command, in the hope of one day claiming vengeance for his homeworld.
Strangely, this didn't disturb him as much as he thought it should. His life had always been filled with violence, with the necessity of fighting for the survival of your clan, even if that was at the expense of others. This was little different, and yet … Something had been changed within him, something both more and less obvious that the changes in his flesh. He was detached from the rest of Mankind now, and though his thirst for vengeance was still there, he found out that he cared little for his homeworld anymore.
As he marvelled at his transformation, both physical and mental, the door opened with the sound of automated pressurized pumps. A little hunched creature entered, stopping dead in its tracks when it saw Mahlone standing out of his coffin. The reborn young man looked at the being with enhanced senses, seeing with a clarity he had never known before. The creature was small, even when taking Mahlone's new height in account. It was humanoid in shape, but despite the shroud draping all of its body, Mahlone could sense that this was no human being. The smell of it was wrong, as were the internal mechanisms of its organs. Without being able to explain why, Mahlone felt an instinctive surge of disgust and contempt for the creature. When it addressed him, speaking through a metal beak emerging from the shadows of its hood, its voice was a nasal, rasping sound.
'Great One,' it said, bowing as deeply as its twisted frame would allow it. 'You have awakened. You must go to the Masters now. They will want to see you.'
Mahlone had never seen anyone ever bowing to him before, or even witnessed the action until that moment. He had seen images of it in the dead men's memories, but the people of the Land showed submission by covering their ears, effectively rendering themselves helpless. Still, it felt right that the creature would bow to him.
'What are you ?' he asked, curiosity overcoming his disgust. His voice was much lower and confident than before his transformation.
'I am a servant of the Masters,' it answered, putting the same emphasis on the last words that he had the first time. Well, that was helpful. 'Please, Great One,' it insisted, its tone sickeningly desperate. 'You must go the Masters.'
He complied, more to make the creature shut up that for any other reason, and followed it through a long corridor with many doors like the one he had come from.
'What is behind these doors ?' he asked without stopping walking, already suspecting the answer.
'More sleeping Great Ones,' said the servant. 'The Masters are making them in here, shaping them from the bodies of mortals and the blood of the Nine Flesh Gods.'
That was what he had thought. But there were a lot of chambers. How many new Astartes were those 'Masters' creating from those they had taken ? Dozens ? Hundreds ? His knowledge of the traditional procedures for induction into the Legions' ranks was incomplete – there had been little reason to teach him that, after all. But even so, he knew the process was supposed to take years of painful surgeries and training. For all the agony he had endured during his transformation, it certainly did not feel like years had passed, through the surgeries themselves had certainly seemed to last forever.
Questions. But there was little chance the servile creature could answer them. It seemed only to be able to carry out basic instructions, which made Mahlone wonder why the 'Masters' didn't use servitors instead. No, if he wanted answers to those questions, and the far more pressing one of Ygdal's fate, he would have to ask someone with a higher position in the Forsaken Sons' hierarchy.
Mahlone and his diminutive guide finally reached the end of the corridor. The servant typed something on a control panel near the sealed door, its clumsy fingers struggling to not touch the wrong part of the sensitive screen. It would have been comical if it hadn't been so pathetic.
On the other side of the door was a vast chamber that had clearly been used for some of the surgeries on the aspirant Space Marines. Stains of dried blood colored the bare metal of the floor, too deeply ingrained to be removed – though Mahlone could tell just by looking that there was something unnatural in the stains, something not of reality. That was probably why the traces hadn't been washed away, even though the rest of the room appeared to be kept clean.
A corpse was bound to one of the operation tables, dead half-way during his transformation into a Legionary. It had been cut open and left so, surrounded by a shimmering stasis field so that it would be preserved for observation. To Mahlone's relief, the corpse didn't show any likeness to Ygdal. He idly wondered if the young man was truly dead, or if he had been caught between life and death at the field's activation. Other machines were placed against the walls, purring with power. Some of them, Mahlone recognized from his new knowledge, but there were many whose purpose he couldn't even begin to guess.
The servant rushed toward one of the consoles, the only one of the room currently manned. Before the glowing screen covered in fast-scrolling data stood a being of the same stature as Mahlone, but made even taller by the power armor he was wearing. When the warrior turned to heed the creature's call, Mahlone saw the other Astartes' helmet from the other side of the room. He knew that helmet, the serrated crown rising from the mask that looked like that of an ancient king. He had seen it above him during his sessions out of the coffin. Now he recognized the warrior's colors, and the name he had heard spoken by other 'surgeons' was as clear as water in his mind.
'Ah, another of Jikaerus' batch,' said Pareneffer, formerly of the Thousand Sons Legion. 'Welcome back to the world of the living, young one,' he pursued, his smile never leaving his tone. 'Welcome to the world of true power.'
Mikail had not been wrong. There was light in the temple's depths … of a sort. The illumination had no clear source, and each section of the rooms they crossed appeared to be lit by its own light source and no other. Shadows twisted according to where one stood, and seemed to move when no one was looking. Despite his reluctance to breathe the planet's foul air, Jikaerus had been forced to take off his helmet. His retinal display had been unable to cope with this cursed place's defiance of physics, showing him only a blurred, swirling pool of green light. His flesh eyes, though, could see without any difficulty – bar a slight but growing headache as his brain hopelessly tried to interpret the contradictory levels of illumination.
As they went deeper into the temple, the sound of the wind died out. In its stead, Jikaerus began to hear the sound of drums and songs, as if they were coming from far, far away. The words were impossible to distinct, yet there was something disturbingly familiar to them, and the rhythm of the beat reminded him entirely too much of some of the Hand of Ruin's cultists' celebrations.
'I thought these ruins were abandonned,' he said to his guide.
'They are, Great One,' answered Mikail. 'At least, they were when I last visited them. Perhaps some of this world's faithful found their way there since then … But I doubt it. And so do you, I think.'
Jikaerus didn't grace the question with an answer. He had to admit to himself, though, that the mortal was right. He did doubt that. The voices they could almost hear were not the voice of human beings, nor were they the mindless screaming of the Neverborn. They were an echo of times long past, brought back to a semblance of existence by the planet's slow descent into the Sea of Souls.
A few minutes later, the two traitors emerged into the first of the temple's prayer rooms, and Jikaerus felt, for the first time since he had seen the Imperial Palace burn in the fires of ultimate heresy, something akin to awe in his withered soul.
The room was vast. In fact, it was big enough that a Warlord Titan could stand in it without risking damaging the ceiling. It was also broad enough to let tens of thousands of devotees pay their respect to the image that took up the entirety of the wall in front of the tunnel by which they had emerged. At some point, Jikaerus suspected, it had been a natural cavern, one of an entire complex that had been transformed into the succession of rooms Mikail had described. There was simply no way any race in the galaxy would have had the resources to dig this space, nor when there was an entire planet to colonize just above. Something must have led the xenos that had built the temple there, and looking at the fresco, the Fleshmaster felt that he knew what.
The fresco was monumental. It was constituted of millions of precious gems, each no larger than a fingernail. Jikaerus had seen shipyards that drained a dozen systems of ore to build the vessels aboard which Mankind sailed the stars, and witnessed the glory of the Great Crusade as it turned thousands of world into the power base of the newborn Imperium, yet this display of material might still impressed him. Here was a symbol of power used for its own sake, to show the rest of the universe one's own greatness and might. But the fresco was also something more than mere materialistic wealth on an absurd scale. It was also an icon, an idol. Just by looking at it, Jikaerus could imagine the hundreds of master craftsmen working day and night for years, using all of their skill to shape the ransom of a hundred world into something that was to represent …
To represent …
He sees the dawn of a civilization.
From the skies, great ships of shining bones and coruscent energies descend, like the angels of the old myths. What was once a rock devoid of life is now covered in plants, creating an atmosphere capable of sustaining a complete biosphere, with its myriad species and balances. Blue seas and green forests cover entire continents where before there was only dust, and animals from the other side of the galaxy roam vast plains, hunting for game that their kind should never have met. The entire world has been reshaped from orbit to fit the desires of the vessels' masters.
Those of the ships which have already reached the ground open their entrails, letting countless beings of untold beauty emerge unto the new world they have claimed for themselves. Already towers are beginning to rise from the bare earth, the very rock conforming to their will by the power of their tools and the strength of their minds. Palaces where they will be able to enjoy their immortality and great libraries that will be filled with an universe's worth of knowledge come into existence with barely more than a thought.
A great temple is born, shaped from the rock of the world, carved open by the power of the galaxy's heirs. Within it they record their story, from the birth of their race so many millenia ago to their arrival to this world. They do so with all the demesure of kings and the foolishness of gods with no one to limit them.
They are the lords of the galaxy, these beings. Heirs of the greatest species ever to march among the stars, they hold the keys to power beyond the ken of other races. Their minds are vessel of unmatched psychic might, their bodies shaped to perfection and their grace a miracle to watch. Their gods rule the heavens just as they rule the plane of matter and stone, and the daemons of yore are kept silent by their power. In the entirety of their universe, they know there is none that may even thought of daring to challenge them.
Yet they are not the greatest of their kind. They are willing exiled, having left behind the glorious empire of their kindred, seeking to build their own dominion away from the influence of their rulers. They claim the worlds of this star as their own, each group settling upon a world to shape it in the image of their desires. Those who have come here are filled with the will to reach beyond their already great power. They dream of a greatness yet untouched, of a potential yet untapped, and they want to claim the heights they know are rightfully theirs.
They rise great towers from the ground, and within them study ancient secrets and perform experiments on sciences long forgotten. He sees them bringing in more and more animals for their experiments, and the towers grow as the knowledge of their masters do the same. And then ...
Jikaerus took a deep, sudden breath as his consciousness returned to him. He was lying on the floor, and his armor was pumping his body full of stimulants in a desperate attempt to wake him up from what it had interpreted to be a psychic attack. He wasn't sure the half-daemon machine-spirit was wrong about that classification.
Careful not to look at the fresco again, he searched his surroundings for Mikail. The hybrid was on his knees, contemplating the image with wide eyes and an open mouth, reverence and ecstasy marking his face in equal measure. Jikaerus resisted the urge to shoot him there and then, and reached out to him. Placing an hand on the mortal's shoulder, he tried to shake him out of his trance.
'Get up,' he hissed. 'We still have a mission to fulfill'.
Mikail didn't move. With a groan, Jikaerus shook him harder, and the hybrid finally snapped out of whatever realm had claimed his senses. The mortal looked around him, looking lost, then saw the Fleshmaster and smiled.
'This was magnificent, wouldn't you agree, Great One ?'
Jikaerus was halfway to give the creature before him his true opinion when he remembered that Mikail had already been there. Anger rose within him, fed by his armor's wrath at having its wearer exposed to such manipulation.
'Did you know this would happen ?'
Mikail shook his head.
'No, Great One. When last I came, this was merely a fresco. Beautiful beyond compare, yes, but there was no vision. Trust me on this,' he added with a smile as if to some joke the Astartes was not privy to, 'I wouldn't have reacted the way I did if I had already seen … whatever it is we saw. By the way, did you recognize them ? I didn't last time, but now that I have seen them in their true form, rather than how they depicted themselves …'
'Yes,' admitted Jikaerus. 'I did recognize them.'
'But that makes no sense,' pressed Mikail, excitement clearly visible on his face. 'I read the reports of this system's subjugation during the Great Crusade. Much was kept concealed from the common troopers' – there, Jikaerus felt the hybrid's disgust that he may have ever belonged to such rabble – 'but I am quite certain that the xenos overlords that the Crusade overthrew were not …'
'I think we will discover the truth about that deeper in the temple,' interrupted Jikaerus. 'Lead the way, mortal,' he ordered.
As they went across the room toward the passage that would lead them to the next step of the temple, the Fleshmaster asked himself the same question Mikail had risen.
How had the Eldars who had first colonized this world turned into the monstrosities that had been defeated by the Expeditionary Fleet ?
There was no mistaking the xenos he had seen in the visions : he had faced them often enough during the Great Crusade. Though the ones he had fought lacked the aura of certainty and absolute power he had witnessed in the Warp-induced images. Jikaerus knew some of the Eldars' history : how they had once ruled the galaxy, only to have their empire torn apart when they gave birth to Slaanesh. But that had happened centuries ago, at least, and the Great Crusade had liberated Parecxis from its overlords long after that.
The former Apothecary began to suspect that there was even more to the mission he had been given than he had suspected.
Pareneffer wasn't typical of the Fleshmasters. That much, Mahlone could have guessed himself : there was little chance that one of the greatest biological hereteks would choose to be the one to welcome newly made Astartes aboard the Hand of Ruin. Yet the former Thousand Son had done so anyway, relishing the prospect of observing the effect of various Legion's gene-seed on the flesh of mortal hosts.
Before answering any of Mahlone's questions, the Fleshmaster had first scanned the young blood's body for impurities or malformations. He had found none. All nineteen organs that had been implanted one at a time into the young man's body worked perfectly well, and the progenoids in his chest were still changing him, reconfiguring his DNA to the genetic template of the Primarch they had come from. Finally, he allowed Mahlone to speak. There were many things the new Astartes wanted to know, but he settled on the most obvious one first :
'What will happen to me now ?'
'You will be armed and armored, first of all. As powerful as an Astartes' body is, it still needs to be properly equipped. Then you will be sent to the rest of the Unbound, and probably given orders to go participate in the war the rest of the Forsaken Sons are currently fighting.'
'The «Unbound» ?' asked Mahlone. He had never heard that name before, yet he felt its meaning was of great importance.
'It is what we call you, the new generation of Marines. You were never part of the Great Crusade, though you may remember some of it. You never waged the False Emperor's wars.'
Pareneffer's voice turned dark and bitter as he continued :
'You were never enslaved to His will, never bound by His tyrannic laws and deceitful goals. Thus you are the Unbound, and you will fight alongside us Legionaries to bring Him down from the Throne of Terra.'
Mahlone stayed silent for a few seconds, surprised at the raw hatred he could feel in the former Apothecary's voice. For all his smiles and joviality, here was a soul just as consumed by the thirst for revenge as any other among the Forsaken Sons.
'Besides,' added Pareneffer in a lighter tone, 'you were also spared most of the hypno-conditionnement usually forced into the aspirants' brains. Some of it was used, of course – you will need the ability to fight alongside other Legionaries instinctly, after all – but your mind remains your own. The Awakened One himself demanded that it be so, and most of the Fleshmasters think this will actually make you more effective in the long run.'
The young Astartes didn't miss the one word in the other's sentence.
'Most ?'
Pareneffer shrugged, the move making his armor's servo-joints groan under the unfamiliar strain as they tried to emulate the gesture.
'Don't worry about it. Their concerns were reasonable, but we addressed them before beginning the implantation. As long as you don't do anything foolish, like rush through the Hand of Ruin while killing everything in your path, there won't be any problem on that end. Now, before I send you to the arming chambers, do you have any more questions ?'
'The creature that led me here when I woke up,' said Mahlone. 'What is it ? I could feel that it wasn't human.'
'Ah, but it is. Mostly, anyway. It is the product of one of my brothers' experiments. I do not know if it was a success or a failure – he refused to share his work with me, which leads me to think it was the latter – but it serves its purpose. A … sentient presence after the awakening of the Unbound is better than if we simply let a servitor before each of your coffins – not that we have the resources to do that anyway. The Servant is more adaptable and less costly than one of the lobotomized drones. I have half a mind of asking my brother to make more to help me in my own research.'
'Its presence … irritates me somehow. I feel disgusted near it, and I want to crush it even though it has done nothing to incur my wrath. Why is it ?'
Pareneffer lifted his glance from the schematics he had been studying while answering Mahlone's previous question. When he spoke again, his voice was no longer amused. It was filled with cold, detached interest – the tone of a scientist presented with a phenomena yet unknown.
'This is unrelated to the Servant's nature, that much I can say for certain. Though it is a pitiable thing, it does not inspire any emotion such as the ones you describe in me, nor in my brothers, as far as I know. Hmm. Could it be that … No. Even if that is so, it doesn't matter. Just try to resist these impulses, young one. Anything else ?'
Mahlone was unwilling to simply let the matter lie, as he felt that Pareneffer was hiding something from him. However, the Fleshmaster was not only his undeniable superior in the Forsaken Sons' hierarchy in any way, he was also far more powerful even if he had not been fully armored, while Mahlone wore nothing more than a robe of rough fabric found near his coffin, where the Servant had pointed to him. There was no way he could force an answer out of the older Astartes.
'I was brought onto this ship with a friend – someone closer to me than a brother. His name is Ygdal. Where is he ?'
The two inhumans crossed the room, careful not to look at the mosaic again. What they had come from laid deeper into the temple, far beyond the reach of the common worshippers that had once gathered by thousands in this hall. They marched in silence, the towering form of the Astartes following the steps of the hybrid.
The temple was a labyrinth of corridors and chambers. Whether that was the result of its initial architecture or due to the pervading influence of the Warp, Jikaerus couldn't say. The former scion of the Alpha Legion had enough trouble simply following Mikail and preventing is mind from shutting down at the same time. As they advanced, the risk of sensory overload grew more and more realistic a possibility. The hybrid appeared to be immune to the mind-altering effect Jikaerus was experiencing, or perhaps the Slaaneshi degenerate didn't care – perhaps he even enjoyed it. Regardless, Jikaerus was seeing imaginary sounds and tasting colors that didn't exist. Whatever force was at play here, it was bypassing his Astartes biology and wrecking havoc directly on his neural system – that or it touched directly his soul. But given the warnings his armor kept sending him, the Fleshmaster believed it was the former.
Mikail's steps faltered, then stopped.
'What is wrong ?' asked Jikaerus in a brisk tone.
'We are nearing another of the temple's prayer rooms, Great One,' answered the hybrid, hesitantly. 'There was another fresco in it last time I came. Are you sure you can go on ? You look … unwell, lord Jikaerus.'
The Fleshmaster barely held back from crushing the worm right then and there. Despite his insolence, he still needed him. Besides, he had a point. Jikaerus didn't know how he looked right now – nor did he want to, considering what the mutations had done to his face – but he doubted it was good. Still, he had a mission, and he would be damned if he was going to let something like the Warp's toying with him getting in his way.
'It is only pain,' he lied. He wished that was the case – pain he was used to. 'Let us continue.'
The room was nowhere near as grand as the previous one had been. It was smaller and less decorated – as if it had been built later, and with less tools at the architect's disposal. While still far beyond the skills of most human civilizations, it lacked the sense of majesty that had filled the great hall. The art was different, too, in a subtle way that Jikaerus' mind was unable to point but could still tell was here. If he hadn't known better, he would have thought this had been built by another race entirely.
There was a fresco, too. Like the last time, it occupied the entirety of one wall. It was made not of jewels, but of some material Jikaerus' muddled mind couldn't identify, though he felt it should. Despite knowing better, the Legionary couldn't help but look, compelled by the powers at work in this temple claimed by the Dark Prince. Powerless to stop it, he watched another fragment of the planet's history unfold anew in his mind's eye …
He sees the decay of an empire.
Though the images are glorious still, it is a darker glory, when infamy and might are the mark of power. His mind can perceive the corruption slowly sinking into every single vision. A poison has found its way into the lords of this world, twisting their former nobility into pure arrogance and cruelty.
They have found the power they sought and the secrets they craved, and been remade by them as the price of their pride. Their mastery of life has given them a cold disdain for it – even their own. They reshape their own bodies endlessly, on the merest whim. And when a dozen ships filled with scions of an inferior race emerge into their dominion, lost to the tides of the Sea of Souls, they enslave them. While their neighbors use their share of the captives for amusement or menial work, the lords of this world turn theirs into monsters.
He sees towering beasts of sinew and muscle fight each other at the tune of their lords, first in great arenas the size of cities. Then, as the corruption grows deeper, it turns the lords against each other. Armies of twisted flesh and tortured souls are made to march and die under the gaze of their makers, who remain safe into their towers.
He sees rivalries grow and turn into hatred. Halls of learning that have stood undisturbed for centuries are torn down, their lore plundered by lords seeking even the slightest advantage over their enemies. War rages for years on end before stopping abruptly once both sides' legions are dead. Then it starts anew, a few decades later, with freshly created armies. More and more cruel weapons are used, and the creatures that fight the countless battles become more and more twisted as their overlords splice the genetic stock of their slaves with that of a thousand other creatures. Artificial plagues are unleashed, wiping the once verdant planet clean of life safe for the great towers from which the factions wage war against each other.
When consciousness returned to him, the feeling of drowning in sensations had lifted. Jikaerus wasn't certain that was a good sign. As he forced himself to stand, he involuntarily glanced in the direction of the mosaic again. Though he adverted his gaze in time to avoid being drawn back into the vision, he saw enough to be able, this time, to recognize the material it used. And for the first time since he had learned of the Steel-Wrought's fate, the Fleshmaster shivered in instinctive disgust and repulsion.
Bone. The mosaic was formed of thousands and thousands of bone shards, each one naturally of the color the sick artistry had required. At some point in the history of this cursed world, one of the genetic overlords had deliberately bred creatures whose bones were of the right coloration in order to build this … abomination. And what Jikaerus had just seen told him exactly what genetic template had been used as the base for this blasphemous work.
He felt sick. This was an insult against the human race as a whole. The Fleshmasters played with their former species' genetics as well, ture, but their goal was to improve them. To create better warriors, to enhance those who would fight under the Forsaken Sons' banner. Not to breed wretches who had to have been plagued by congenial diseases and mutation for the sole purpose of harvesting their bones …
Jikaerus felt less and less certain in his mission.
He had known the Hand of Ruin was a big ship – a lord of the stars, a predator that few others could match in majesty and firepower. Yet he hadn't fully realized the sheer size of the vessel, not until Pareneffer sent him to the current lair of the Unbound, several sections away from the room where he had met the Fleshmaster.
According to the former Thousand Son, Ygdal had survived the transformation into a Space Marine as well. He and the other Unbound were training in one of the ship's empty rooms that had initially been designed for this very purpose, but abandoned after the number of Astartes aboard had dwindled. Unfortunately, it was also on the other side of the ship. So, after spending a few moments in the adjacent arming chamber, where servitors had put him inside a Mark V power armor. The armor had been painted black with the chained daemonic head that served as the warband's emblem inscribed in gold on the shoulder paldron. All signs of previous allegiances had been erased – much like Mahlone himself, the armor was the symbol of a new beginning.
Then, armored and armed with a standard bolter and chainsword, he had gone to reunite with his brother. Though he had never walked freely on a spaceship before, he knew exactly where to go without needing anyone to guide him. The Hand of Ruin was built on an innovative design, and thus his hypno-training, that had taught him the layout of most types of vessels created by Mankind, was nearly useless. But his armor's database had been updated with the ship's plans – at least enough of them to allow him to find his way. His retinal display was higlighting the turns he had to make, much like it would have had he been a boarder.
Walking like this was an entirely new experience for Mahlone. He wasn't used to march straight, without having to check his path carefully to avoid falling into an hole or straining his ankle. Nor was he used to not having to strain his ears and brain constantly in order to map his surroundings. His armor's sensors pierced the darkness easily, and his bare eyes would have done the same. That was for the best, for the noise in the ship was astonishing to Mahlone's ears.
In the Land – on the surface of Mulor Secundus, he corrected himself – silence had been a question of survival. Any sound could bring the attention of the Stalkers upon yourself, and it diminished your own readiness. On the Hand of Ruin, though, silence was naught but a memory. Even in his coffin, Mahlone had been able to hear the constant rumbling of the vessel's engines and of the thousands of souls who called it home. Now that he was released, the countless sounds of the ship's life threatened to overwhelm him.
Mahlone forced himself to ignore the sounds, to stop his reflex of trying to map his surroundings by the echoes they made. He wasn't even certain that was possible in the first place, here, where the touch of the Warp Storm made a mockery of physical laws, Geller Field or not. And if he did manage to interpret the Warp-twisted echoes into something useful … well, it would not be a good sign of his sanity. Better to stop trying right now.
He passed before slaves and mutants who lived in the vessel's bowels, but crossed no other Astartes. That made sense. The warriors of the Forsaken Sons would either be on the surface of Parecxis Alpha, or in more important parts of the ship. He ignored the lowly creatures he met, and they bowed before him, clearly unwilling to risk angering any of the Legione Astartes, despite not knowing who he was.
He reached the training deck after almost an hour of march. It was a broad, mostly empty space, with metal crates of ammunition and other supplies piled against the walls. Mahlone caught sight of an open one : it was filled to the brim with gold coins, shining in the soft light of the room. Doubtlessly, they had been plundered from some high-spire born, unfortunate noble. As far as Mahlone could see, the Forsaken Sons did not have any need for riches or material wealth beyond the equipment they required, but he supposed someone among the warband had thought the coins could have a use later.
There were dozens of other Unbound scattered across the deck. Some of them were checking their weapons, while others watched one of the training bouts currently being fought with unpowered blades. Mahlone's retinal display recognized them as allies, though whether that was true or not remained to be seen. It returned to him the exact count of warriors in the room : eighty-three. Even if those had been all the survivors from the hundreds of young humans the Forsaken Sons had taken captive, such a ratio of survival would have been impressive, but there were many more still growing in their coffins. Considering how hard the training and selection had been before the implantation procedures had begun, that meant the percentage of those who had died under the Fleshmasters' knives had been unusually low.
Mahlone wondered, for a moment, if this would be enough to balance the losses the warband was going to suffer in the war for Parecxis Alpha. From what Pareneffer had told him and the garbled transmissions from the surface, the campaign was going to be a bloody one.
'Mahlone,' said the man he had missed so much without even truly realizing how. 'It is good to see you are alive.'
The speaker stood before him, still marching in his direction. Unlike Mahlone, he was not wearing his helmet, which hung at his belt. Despite the changes wrought upon him by the Fleshmasters, Mahlone knew his friend's features at once. They clasped arms in the Astartes' fashion of greeting, one warrior to another, the ingrained reflexes overriding the way they would have reacted as mortals. Then Mahlone realized something.
'How did you know it was me ?'
'No one else would start dreaming just after entering this place. Besides,' Ygdal started grinning, 'the Fleshmaster who met you warned me of your arrival on the vox. He told me you had asked after me. Apparently, he was worried it was because you planned to kill me. What did you do to give off such a poor image of yourself ?'
'Nothing I can think of right now. Probably just being myself was enough.'
They chuckled, though Mahlone felt a surge of anger at being informed of Pareneffer's suspicions. Before he could ask anything more of his friend, he was interrupted by someone he had hoped he wouldn't meet again.
'So you have survived as well, primitive,' said a voice Mahlone recognized despite the changes that had touched it and the interference of the vox-speaker. There was just no mistaking the arrogance and contempt within that voice. 'Clearly the Gods have a sense of humor, to let one as worthless as you become one of their warriors.'
He turned to the source of the voice, his hands curling into fists. This time, he thought, he was going to end this once and for all.
'Illarion Radomir Sertanov,' he said, carefully articulating each syllabi.
It wouldn't do, after all, to mispronounce the name of the man he was about to kill. He marched toward his old rival. The two of them had fought many times before, when the Forsaken Sons had culled those they had brought aboard of the weaker specimens. But never to the death – the Fleshmasters would not allow two of their best subjects to kill each other over something as trivial as petty rivalry. But now …
'Hold, the two of you.'
The voice came from the entrance of the room. There was a warrior clad in the colors of the Sons of Horus, safe for the emblem who was covered in black. Five warriors in the same colors stood by his side. All of them held their weapons in their hands, though they weren't aiming them at the Unbound. Yet.
'What do you want ?' snarled Illarion, his own hand on the pommel of his power sword. How he had obtained such a weapon, Mahlone didn't know, but what he suspected made him want to kill the bastard even more.
'You will speak with more respect than that, cub,' answered the Marine. 'I am sergeant … no, I guess it's «pack leader» now, isn't it ? I am pack leader Lucian, and I am here to bring you youngsters to the battle below. Rejoice, cubs. You will have your first taste of loyalists' blood soon.'
When he would make his full report to Arken, days later, when the lord of the Forsaken Sons was back aboard the Hand of Ruin, Jikaerus would find himself unable to describe the final prayer room. It had been there that he had found what he had come for, and he couldn't speak of it. Not because he didn't want to, though he certainly did not, nor because he lacked the appropriate words, though he certainly did. He simply didn't remember anything beyond the vision he had seen inside. Speaking about it with the members of the Coven, he would learn that those of them not deployed in battle on Parecxis Alpha at the time had felt a pulse of Warp energy at the same time he had entered it. They would theorize that his mind had erased the memory to preserve itself, for what he had seen, at the heart of such a release of psychic force, would surely have destroyed even him.
Perhaps Mikail had seen, and remembered. That wouldn't have surprised Jikaerus in the slightest. But he never asked the hybrid about what had happened in the time between them crossing the final threshold and him finally awakening outside the temple, walking with his prize secure in the void-sealed package he had carried all the way through the unholy sanctuary. All he remembered was the vision, and it would be more than enough to trouble his sleep for centuries to come. The memories was etched in his brain, and it would never truly leave him …
He sees the birth of a goddess.
Death comes to the unfaithful. Reward comes to those who embrace the truth. It has always been so, ever since the stars coalesced from the dust of the Universe's creation and the first souls rose to claim them. The ultimate coming of judgment is something deeply ingrained within all sapient beings, and now he sees why.
The skies are on fire, burning with a fury that makes a mockery of the one the grandsons of a god will unleash in a time yet to come. He knows at once what this is. Most Legionaries would, for knowledge of the enemy was one more weapon in the Great beyond the fact that his own bloodline always prided itself on knowing more on their enemies than they knew about them, there is something about the scene that touches to the collective memory of the human race. An event of such significance, even the so-called mon-keighs could feel it. So he knows what this is. But nothing could have prepared him to the true horror and majesty of it.
This is the Fall. The moment when all the sins, arrogance and excesses of a galactic empire fuse in the Sea of Souls to become the divinity that the empire's masters deserve. The instant when, after millenia of unchallenged rule, the Eldar are called to account for what they have done with the galaxy they inherited. And he knows that, across the stars, countless xenos are recoiling in horror from what they have created. They face their own corruption made manifest by the Hell behind reality, and they are terrified by what they see.
They call upon the old gods they have abandoned in their hedonistic pursuits, and implore them to save their unworthy children. And the gods answer. These beings of unimaginable power, who came into existence in an age when nobility still held firm in the heart of the Eldar, rise and go to battle.
He sees them in the heavenly fire, and he sees their terrible war against their youngest kindred. The power unleashed in this confrontation is enough to reduce entire worlds to shadows of memories and tear open an hole in the fabric of reality, a wound that will fester and grows for all eternity. The battle rages for an age that lasts but the blink of an eye, and then he sees the gods die. They are too weak, withered after centuries of neglect from their worshippers, and their enemy is too strong, fed by the pride of a race of tyrants. Each time one of the old divinities is vanquished, the fire of its existence is swallowed whole by the newborn daemon-queen, dragging billions of Eldar souls with it. All but three of the Eldar gods are destroyed by the hunger of Slaanesh, She-Who-Thirsts, the Profligate One, the Dark Prince of Chaos.
The red-handed war god is shattered in a thousand shards, his final scream of defiance echoing through eternity as a curse upon his failed children. The mother of life and sorrow is spirited away by the Father of Plague, and enslaved to his mad whims and joys. The fool harlequin alone escapes free and unscathed, laughing in the face of the doom of the race that created him, the only one to see the absurd, obscene humor of it all. But even those who survive are no match for the Youngest God.
With his rivals gone, the Dark Prince turns its hungry eyes upon the rest of the galaxy. Tens of billions die, their screams creating a million new Neverborn with every passing second, to attend the courts of the new God of Chaos. He sees their souls in the sky, great rivers of silver light engulfed in a dark abyss that only promises them everlasting torment. But not all Eldar die this way. Those whose ancestors have rejected the corrupt ways of their kin, and who live in harmony with the worlds they have settled upon, are protected by the living spirits of these worlds. Those who foresaw the coming judgment remain safe in their planet-ships, denying the Youngest God their souls by denying themselves the luxury of emotion – thus denying themselves life itself. Those who hide beyond Slaanesh's reach, in the dark tides of beyond even the Warp, avoid their demise for now, instead condemned to an eternity of slow agony as their souls are drunk by the god they birthed one drop at a time.
And then there are those, like the lords of the world he watches, who welcome the coming of the Dark Prince and embrace their new god.
There are few – very few – of them. Of the millions of Eldar who claimed the system as their own, only a few thousands fall on their knees before the image filling their souls, and of those only a few hundreds are strong enough to resist the vision with their mind functional – the most corrupt, cruel, and monstrous of all. These blessed scions of the Profligate One are no longer Eldar, though. Not by any stretch of the notion of species. They stand somewhere between the living and the daemonic, and the secrets and powers they already possessed are amplified tenfold and turned to yet darker aims.
On three worlds, in three different ways, Hell is made reality. He sees only what happens on one, and that is more – so far more – than enough. The horrors of the gene-lords' wars pale in comparison to what he sees. Only the knowledge that this nightmare is fated to end in fire and blades enables him to retain his sanity until the vision ends. But he must be careful, and strong enough, to not look up directly into the storm. He knows, on some deep, instinctual level, that to look upon the figure of the god will unmake him in a way horrible beyond his imagination …
Jikaerus and Mikail returned to their gunship without any word exchanged. The silence continued as they traveled back to the Hand of Ruin and separated. The hybrid went back to the slave holds, where he had begun to carve a little kingdom of his own as one of the favored scions of the Gods. The Fleshmaster went to the Hall of Asclepios to place his prize in a safer, apter storage. One that was done, he reported to the Awakened One. Arken had made planetfall and was leading the Forsaken Sons assault on a loyalist position, but he still took the time too answer Jikaerus' hail.
The communication was eerily clear, as if the tides of Warp-interference that plagued the rest of the forces on the planet were opening before the Fleshmaster's message.
'How did it go, Jikaerus ?' asked Arken, his voice easy to hear despite the ambient sounds of bolter fire and lasguns being discharged.
Jikaerus looked at what he had found, now floating in a reinforced glass tank full of preservative chemicals and scanned by the analyzing devices bounded to it. The corpse of the eldar that had founded the xenos colony on Parecxis Beta all these centuries ago stared back at him with empty sockets. The first results were already coming. Genetic sequences that had survived the years of entombment were being brought back from oblivion by comparison with those of other Eldar breeds and the action of sciences that had been forgotten during the Dark Age of Technology and brought back into the galaxy by the adepts of the Dark Mechanicum. Still, it would take time, and a lot of work, before the sequence was complete.
'I have found what we needed, my lord,' answered the Fleshmaster.
'Then begin your work at once, brother. The resurrection of Parecxis' lords is now within our grasp.'