Exitus Ultima Chapter 32
Dramacus was gone but the Warp was far from done with Sacellum. Turbulent clouds spread across the planet, turning it into a black pearl on the velvet void of space. Nothing could fly through that squall, not gunship or vox signal. The Indomitus Crusade orbiting above could only watch in horror as the surface was lost to them, all transit and communication cut off. Inquisitors attached to the fleet proclaimed the Warp had taken Sacellum and called for an immediate Exterminatus, they were swiftly denied by Captains of the Astartes, who reminded them the Imperial Regent was still down there. Arguments raged but it was pointless, nobody could penetrate that noxious barrier, leaving them impotent.
Below the clouds the Warp's toxic effects began to ooze through the veil. Not as fierce and immediate as Dramacus had suffered, but nightmarish all the same. Howling storms swept the salt plains, fusing particulates into glass as tornados covered the endless wastes. The city-states were no better. Men and women saw visions of terror, past ghosts come to haunt them and sins replayed in the shadows. Dreams came to life and stalked the living, the kind of dreams that one prayed weren't real and made waking a blessing.
In the city-state of Meccia a woman ran screaming from the shades of a dead baby, lost in childbirth. Its wailing cries dogged her steps as she ran from a pain she could never suffer to relive. Her eyes blurred with tears and she did not see her danger as she stepped over a balcony edge and plunged fifty stories to her death. In the slums of Delghia a Vettia boss drowned in a sea of narcotics, he had spent his life foisting poison on the masses and now it was returned to him tenfold. In Heijing a humble priest was confronted by his failures, once an officer but now retired from the Guard and called to holy service. He was no corrupt lord, no decadent priest, merely a quiet man living a quiet life. Still he found himself confronted by the shades of all those he had sent to die, all those he had failed to save. He did not deny his guilt, he merely took an old laspistol from his bed stand and blew his brains out, joining his men in death.
In Saltar city-state a man ran from his apartment, rich robes flapping about his legs. His bare feet pounded stone as he ran into the Cathedral's environs, not having time to put his boots on. He should have been labouring for breath, running so fast, but his weight was taken by a suspensor belt he wore about his waist, making him light on his feet despite his bulk. He was Cardinal Mightily Praiseworthy, a high and mighty potentate of the Ecclesiarchy and he was running for his life.
"Throne," he gasped, "I don't deserve this, why is this happening to me?!" no answer came but he ran anyway. Shadows chased his eyes, visions of fleshy grotesquery. The thing that had arisen in his private harem shook his soul. Nausea rose in his throat but he didn't have time to be sick, he had to run before the nightmare caught up.
He turned a corner and found himself confronted by a grey woman. Thin and gaunt, with haunted eyes and lanky hair. There was not a trace of colour, absolutely slate grey head to toe, as no normal human could be. Praiseworthy screeched to a halt as he gasped, "Marery?!"
"Brother," the woman whispered.
"No, you can't be here, you're dead!"
"Yes I am, you made sure of it."
"No, it wasn't my fault," the Cardinal wailed.
"Not your fault?" the shade spat, "You sold me out to the prelates, denounced me as a Heretic. All for daring to sell books to the poor."
"No, no," Praiseworthy protested, "I had to, they already suspected you. The materials you brought to Sacellum weren't sanctioned by the Ministorum, they were Heresy!"
"Tales of adventurous Rogue Traders," Marery hissed, "Stories that didn't praise the Cardinals, that's enough to kill your own sister?!"
"The priesthood knew, there was no point in us both dying."
Those grey feature creased with anger, "Don't lie, you didn't betray me for survival. You sold me out to prove your worth to the clerics. They patted you on the head as a good boy and took you into their fold. Your whole life was built on selling me out!"
"I had to, the Pilgrim ships left us penniless. We'd have been dead in the gutters otherwise! I had to survive," Praiseworthy pleaded.
"Too late, your sins have come to find you!"
The Cardinal had judged many men, sent tens of thousands to their deaths but his own courage proved brittle when put to the test. He broke and turned to run, he dashed down corridors and took junctions at random. He knew these passages well but soon was lost. Grey figures haunted his route, faces he knew well. Former allies, former enemies, mostly both. People he had used and betrayed on his ascent to power. Praiseworthy had worked the political machine of the Ecclesiarchy with expert grace, oiling his path to power with the blood of betrayed compatriots.
He turned another corner and ran into a man. A Frater of the Ministorum, one of their brute headbreakers. The two collided and the Frater swayed back as the Cardinal pleaded, "Keep them away!"
"Your grace?!" the Frater started, "I apologise, forgive my clumsiness."
"Forget that, just keep them away!"
"Who?"
"Them, keep them back!"
"But…" the Frater squawked, "But there's no one there."
Praiseworthy wasn't listening, he was already running, leaving the Frater behind. He darted down another passage, took random turns and ran into another ghost. This one was heavy-set, with many scars and a broken nose. His hands were calloused and his knuckles raw from the beatings he delivered daily. A Vettia boss, one willing to get his hands dirty.
"Coward," the shade spat.
Praiseworthy screeched to a halt, "No... not you too."
"Afraid to see me?" the ghost hissed.
"Cassus, you died in the uprising," Praiseworthy breathed.
The ghost hissed, "Thanks to you, you left me to die."
"I had to!" Praiseworthy wailed.
"After all I did for you. Paid you bribes, supplied you with joygirls, eliminated troublesome rivals. I built your power for you, and when the time came to repay me, when the Heretics swept Sacellum, you closed your doors and stopped your ears!"
"I couldn't be seen to help a criminal, think of my position!" Praiseworthy cried.
"That's not the worst," Cassus growled, "You forget the bodies I hid for you."
"No, not her…"
Sick horror made him spin and he found a slip of a girl standing behind him. Short but buxom, clad in a mere handful of silk. One of the many joygirls brought to his pleasure suite, innocent and unspoilt, till he got his hands upon them. She was grey as all the ghosts were, but her neck bore ugly bruises, welts where his hands had crushed the life from her. He could still see the impressions of his fingers, the windpipe he had mangled in blind passion as he ravaged her youthful innocence. He'd tried to forget that night, so many times, but it lurked ever in his mind, rising to haunt his thoughts every day without fail.
"It was an accident," Praiseworthy pleaded as his heart spiked in pain, "I didn't mean to."
"Yes you did," she said with icy condemnation.
"It was the worst thing I ever did," Praiseworthy wept, "God-Emperor forgive me."
"There is no forgiveness for what you've done," she hissed, "And your sins will drag you to hell."
"No, I didn't mean… it was done in drink… Cassus swore nobody would ever find out…"
"Too late, your crimes have caught up with you."
Praiseworthy screamed as he ran, leaving the ghosts behind. His heart was thundering in his chest, even with suspensor help he was taxing his frame. He hadn't run in years and he was anything but fit. Sweat beaded his brow and his left side spiked with pain, but still he ran. Past Fraters and servants, who blinked in shock, past curious clerics and praying pilgrims. He ran and ran, uncaring for where so long as his ghosts didn't catch up.
Praiseworthy found a door and pushed through blindly, slamming it behind. He spun about only to discover to his horror he was back where he started. A lavish chamber, fit with gilded furniture and rich décor. A decadent den of vice where he slaked his lusts, but today it was filled with a monstrosity. The floor was covered by a mass of flesh, rolling and heaving as if a troubled sea. Arms and faces rose at random, reaching for him, pleading for salvation or to join them. Praiseworthy knew each and every one, for they had been his harem, the crop of young flesh he kept for his amusement. He had watched them be taken by the powers of Chaos, their flesh running together in a sea of change as bodies dissolved into gelatinous mush.
"Join us," many voices cried, "Suffer with us."
"No!" Praiseworthy wailed as he backed up to the door, "Get away!"
"Join us… it's what you've always wanted… pain… justice… end us…"
"Leave me be!" Praiseworthy screamed as his heart threatened to burst through his ribs, "I am no worse than any other man. All men sin, I am nothing special."
Arms came for him, "Kill you… love you… make you pay… serve you…"
"No… I… gah!" Praiseworthy gasped as the pain in his chest became a vicious spike of agony. He clutched his breast as his knees gave out, dropping him to the floor. Cold rushed through him, as sweat beaded his brow and his eyes filled with tears. It was his heart giving out, a cardiac arrest clutching tight. A lifetime of decadent vice had rotted his arteries and finally his heart could take no more.
"I'm sorry… I'm sorry for all of it. Please… forgive me," Praiseworthy wept but it was too late. He fell to the floor and his heart stopped beating, stopped by the weight of his sins. It took an hour for the Fraters to break down his door and when they did so they found the room pristine, no trace that the fleshy quagmire ever existed remaining. All that remained was the Cardinal, laid out on the floor, clutching his chest as his body cooled. They scratched their heads in puzzlement as his soul went to its just reward in the warp, fated to be devoured by the hungering gods he had unknowingly worshipped in blind ignorance. The Cardinal was dead but the rising tide of the Warp had barely begun to take its bite out of Sacellum.