Exitus Ultima Chapter 19
"I don't understand, why did you need to meet so urgently?" Prelate Bhras stammered.
"We have need of your gifts," Beta replied bluntly.
"But I risk being found out coming here," Bhras gulped, "Throne, if they knew we were meeting, if they knew the things I've done for you..."
"You have been well-compensated at every stage," Beta reminded the quivering man, "And your rewards will be even more plentiful yet."
Deep underground they met, in the echoing catacombs of the long dead. It was a cold place, filled with bones and statues of forgotten worthies. High above the City-state of Kuruk suffered in the throes of despair, crowds praying for salvation while Imperial jackboots smashed down the doors in a quest for answers. Beta would have found their futile efforts amusing, save that he had problems of his own. To resolve that he had inscribed this vault with arcane symbols and mystic circles, glyphs of aversion and shrouding, all to obscure Harbinger's sight. Beta hunted a Daemon of no mean power, that required elaborate protections.
The Sorcerer's eyes fell upon the fat priest, wringing his hands in misery. A short man in brown robes, with obese features and sweaty hands. His eyes were watery and his hair a mop of tangled tufts. One glance told Beta he'd never held a gun in his life, yet sneered at those who did so. A coward yes, but a greedy one, which made him useful. With the offer of large bribes Bhras had sold his loyalty to the Alpha Legion, using his office to smuggle weapons to hidden cults, divert guard patrols from sensitive areas and secure passage for operatives past orbital custom checks. A useful tool, but not an operative by any means,
A true operative of the XXth Legion was a crafted killer, honed and conditioned to suit their task. Physically skilled, some even enhanced with gene-stims and augmetics, and indoctrinated against psychic intrusion. Bhras by comparison was a weak thing, a man who sold out his oaths for coin. Greedy, venal, bloated on self-importance, serving no master but himself, not the Legion, not Chaos, certainly not the Corpse-Emperor. Bhras believed in Bhras first, Bhras second and Bhras last. A soul steeped in sin and destined to die stabbed in the back by a jilted lover. Perfect for Beta's purposes.
"Explain what's going on?" Bhras pressed with the courage of the desperate.
Beta took his staff and twirled the blade before his eyes, casting reflections as the serrated edges spun, "I seek the spoor of a Daemon."
"A Daemon?!" Bhras gulped.
Beta confirmed, "Yes, a Daemon of Chaos, a mighty one at that. Harbinger is high in the courts of the Warp, or deep, depending on how you look at it. Such a creature is cunning and sly, steeped in magic and learned in the ways of the arcane. To hunt him is to be hunted by him, it would take prodigious magic to avoid his gaze. A spell of invisibility would only draw his attention, like a flare in the night. Cloaking my presence is next to impossible, he can smell the lifeforce of a man half a world away, hear sin on the wind and see the destinies of mortals as plain as a road on a map."
Bhras looked terrified as he raised his hands, "Look, I helped you move some stuff about, opened a few doors, but this is too much. A Daemon... Throne, I can't be involved in this."
"But you are involved," Beta chided, "Up to your eyeballs in sin."
"This is too far!" Bhras cried, "I don't understand what you need me for anyway!"
"It's simple, Harbinger will see me coming, if it is in my destiny to meet him. So, the only way to close undetected is to steal someone else's!"
Beta's hand moved and his spear flashed, opening Bhras' throat in a wide smile. The Prelate's blood sprayed wide, showering the arcane glyphs upon the floor, which drank blood like a sponge as they guzzled his lifeforce. Bhras' hands flew to his neck but could not stop the tide as he collapsed, thrashing upon the floor. Esoteric magics were already in play, working to Beta's design, but he was not finished.
Beta knelt and dabbed his fingers in the tide, then drew arcane marks upon his armour. Curving symbols he wrote upon himself as he chanted, "Tua vita capio pro mea." Once more he dipped his fingers and wrote blood across his plates, chanting, "Peccatum tuum, lavo." Once more he anointed himself in blood, crying, "Fatum tuum meum est!"
Bhras finally went still, his heart giving out but Beta had finished his spell. The marks upon his plate were more than a spell of concealment, more than camouflage. He had wrapped himself in the scent of Bhras' lifeforce, covering himself in another's psychic skin. Bhras' sins were painted upon his plate, obscuring the soul underneath, and the Prelate's destiny Beta wore as a cloak. To any seer he was Bhras, to any prophet his destiny was the Prelates'. Let Harbinger seek the Sorcerer all he wanted; the Daemon would find only a petty sinner. Beta was invisible to all psychic auguries, even Tzeentch himself couldn't find the Sorcerer now.
Clothed in another's essence Beta left his sanctuary, venturing into the echoing tunnels that stretched beyond the tombs. Far under the city-states they ran, league upon league of vaults, crypts, mausoleums and oubliettes. Corpse biers lined the walls, laden with skeletal remains, shelf after shelf of the faithful laid to rest. Houses of the dead far grander than the hovels of the living above, it was strange the lowly scum didn't just move underground entirely. Beta winded his way through the maze with a confident step, following a route he had memorised in exacting detail. For hours he made his way, sure no one would know he was there, his Transhuman senses alerting him to the passage of insects, let alone people.
After an interminable walk he heard voices ahead and slowed his pace. A door into a vault loomed, filled with darkness and from it chanting arose. Beta stepped to the side and reached up to a corpse bier. He gripped the fourth-highest shelf and heaved himself up, pushing aside the bones to squeeze in. It was a tight fit in power armour but he pressed in, then turned his attention to the wall. He dared not attempt a spell this close to the Daemon but his fingers were more than adequate to bore through crumbling stone and a couple of minute's work allowed him to carve an eyehole into the vault.
He pressed his eye lens to the hole and beheld a dark ritual occurring. In a chamber not too dissimilar to the one he had used a circle of acolytes stood chanting. Purple robes hung off limbs with too many joints and inhuman voices rang loud. They held their arms wide as they sang an unholy hymnal, beseeching the warp for succour. Arcane symbols daubed the walls and ceiling, and steaming corpses lay on the floor, their entrails opened to the air. Beta was disappointed, he'd missed the traditional betrayal of the followers, dupes who would pay for believing in Chaos with their lives.
In the centre of the circle stood a frail girl, clad in furs as a feral world primitive. Harbinger's host, so dainty and petite, astonishing so slight a body could contain such infernal majesty. It seemed Beta had arrived at the very culmination of the ritual for Harbinger lifted those pale hands above his head as the acolytes cried praises to Tzeentch and a flash of Unlight appeared between the Daemonhost's palms, a flame flickering in colours beyond human comprehension.
Silence fell as the Daemon lowered his arms and whispered, "And so it begins."
An acolyte stepped forward asking, "Mighty mother, does the prophecy progress?"
"Indeed it does my beloved children," Harbinger crooned, "The spark is with us, the Changer of Ways blesses us with the fires of creation."
The hooded head tilted, "It's... smaller than I expected."
"You doubt me?!" Harbinger snapped with echoes of danger to the voice.
"No Mighty mother," the acolyte pleaded, "We serve you as we always have, ever since your voice came to us from the stars. You promised us to ascend on wings of fire, to the womb of creation. We pledge our souls to your service now and evermore."
Beta could not help but snort slightly, the lies of Daemons duped many, but these witless fools were among the most gullible he'd ever seen. His indiscretion almost cost him dear, for Harbinger's head rose, as if scenting something on the wind. Beta froze, mind and body, making his thoughts blank and his heartbeat slow. Not a spell, no conjuration, simple stillness, trying to make himself a non-event in spacetime, void of all potential and energy.
Either his spells or his stillness was enough to satisfy Harbinger for the Daemon lowered his gaze and said, "Take this to the anointed place and wait for the hallowed hour. I have great preparations to make, but soon we will be together once more. With this spark we will summon the Mendix Ignis, and this world shall rise to join me, where I dwell now."
"Of course Mighty Mother," the acolyte breathed as he accepted the sparking flame, "We shall do as you bid."
Harbinger turned and strode out, leaving the acolytes behind. They gathered together, whispering over the enticing flame, hoods lit from within by ethereal shimmers. Harbinger left, striding by Beta's position without pause, head several feet below the Sorcerer's location. As the footsteps faded Beta allowed his thoughts to flow again. Something momentous had just occurred, something he did not understand but epic in significance, he had to know more. Sure that the Daemon was gone he extended his powers, muttering a cantrip in a forgotten tongue.
One acolyte leaned in, "Let me see!"
The holder pulled back, "Keep away."
"You shouldn't keep it all to yourself!" a third pleaded.
"Let me see!"
"Keep away."
"You shouldn't keep it all to yourself."
"Let me see!"
"Keep away."
"You shouldn't keep it all to yourself."
"Let me see!"
Beta slipped from his alcove and made his way inside the vault. The acolytes didn't react, endlessly repeating the same moment over and over. Beta hadn't dared kill them, the shift in destiny would alert Harbinger instantly. Instead he'd trapped them in a looped moment, splicing a moment into itself, recycling causality endlessly. They were alive, but unaware, stuck like flies in amber, till Beta saw fit to release them. If he were careful they would never know he'd been here.
Beta leaned over the lowly mutants and saw the flame they huddled over. Ever so gently he extended his arm, reaching past them to pluck the flame from their hands. The acolytes didn't react, unable to think of anything outside their temporal loop. They continued their pantomime as he stepped back, examining the spark in his hand.
It danced on his gauntlet, flame fed without fuel, such a small thing but imbued with all the colours of the Warp. The flame was split in twain, curving around an oval void, then again, to touch and form leaping plumes. Like a figure-8, or more accurately the symbol of infinity stood upright, crowned with multi-hued sparks. Beta had never seen the like, but he'd read of such miracles and the implications stole over him, the scope of Harbinger's plans and the depths of treachery. This was proof the Daemon planned to betray them, as if any was needed, but also an opportunity for the Alpha Legion.
Under his helm Beta's lips drew back over his teeth, "The Medix Ignis, so that's what you were up to. I underestimated you Harbinger, killing a Primarch was but the first step in your plan. I applaud your ambitions, but sadly you have underestimated the Legion too. The key to the ultimate victory is in our hands and you shall find our ambitions match yours."