"The danger now," Lord Commander Vespasian had recently said to Solomon Demeter, "is no longer our aim, but the lack of it."
Demeter considered Vespasian a voice of reason in general, and this comment he saw as particularly insightful. The Emperor's Children were too close to losing their decency. Ever since Fulgrim had executed Lord Commander Verona, the morality of the Legion had declined. Leaders of failed operations - including two Captains - were regularly executed, sometimes even without Fulgrim's orders. Enemy civilians were massacred. Remembrancer Serena d'Angelus' last work had used blood as a medium; she insisted it came from rats, but based on its tint Demeter suspected a more sinister origin.
So now he stood outside Vespasian's office to request a formal inquiry. Fulgrim was unavailable as always, spending his time either working with Bile or discussing religion with Lorgar Aurelian via astropath. And of the Lord Commanders, Fabius seemed not to care about the Legion's decay - being consumed in his work - and Eidolon actively contributed to it.
"Come in," Vespasian said, and the Second Captain of the Emperor's Children did.
"Captain Demeter."
"Lord Commander Vespasian," Demeter began, and then stopped because he recognized he had not been welcomed by Vespasian. "Lord Commander Eidolon?"
"We were just," Vespasian said with an undercurrent of anger, "discussing the matter of Serena d'Angelus."
"And I repeat," Eidolon said, "she was within her rights. It was for art, Vespasian!"
"I have seen her so-called 'art'," Vespasian grimly replied, "and it failed to inspire."
"Most of those who fought on Laeran find it inspiring."
"Most of those who fought in the temple, you mean." Vespasian turned to Demeter, quickly copied by the other Lord Commander. "What are you here about, Solomon?"
"The same, actually. I was about to request an inquiry."
"I've already carried out one," Vespasian said. "Serena d'Angelus murdered crew members Aseka Terpesi and Taur Taodor and used their blood for her paintings."
"Murder?"
Demeter was aghast. Executions - even ones ordered by Eidolon instead of Fulgrim - were bad enough, but murder on an Astarte vessel was simply - simply unthinkable, really. Even when Demeter had suspected d'Angelus was lying about the blood's origin, he didn't really consider -
"Murder," Vespasian confirmed, "and Lord Commander Eidolon considers it acceptable. As well as executing Saul Kisteus, who was a Sergeant under my indirect command!"
"Those structures no longer matter, what with Kisteus failing in my operation," Eidolon noted, "and who are you to complain about death? How many humans have you killed in war? How many-" Demeter pressed his blade to the Lord Commander's neck, choler peaking in his heart though his conscious mind was barely aware of what he was doing, but the speaker seemed not to notice- "sentient xenos? Death is natural, and there is nothing profane about it."
"Would you like to experience it, then?" Demeter inquired with grinding teeth.
"Mutiny, on the other hand," Eidolon proclaimed, finally realizing the danger he was in, "is unforgivable. So please let me go."
"You are already gone," the Second Captain said, a cold hatred for this slime filling him.
Eidolon looked to Vespasian, but the other Lord Commander was unmoving. And then, just as the chainsword's teeth were about to spring to life, the Phoenician entered.
It was clear Fulgrim had not been expecting this; as soon as he saw the scene, a luminous and despairing rage filled his features. He was dressed in only a white robe, but he was as majestic and mighty as ever; light, or steam, seemed to go up from his lilac eyes.
"Release him," Fulgrim said with the temperature of vacuum.
Demeter could not disobey. Yes, the Legion was declining. Yes, they were flying to do the unthinkable - to fight another Astarte Legion. Yes, Solomon Demeter suspected Lord Commander Fabius' implants had a hidden, dark purpose. Yes, the last recruitment visit to Chemos had, even after gene-seed compatibility testing, met with a 99% casualty rate. In sum, yes, Demeter doubted his Primarch.
But now, at this moment, against this glorious perfection, there was no way Demeter could deny him. Murder on an Astartes vessel had been unthinkable so recently - had he really been on the verge of committing fratricide?
"Now," Fulgrim said, simultaneously seeming murderous and melancholy, "what happened?"
"My lord father," Vespasian answered, "Eidolon endorsed Serena d'Angelos' murder of Terpesi and Taodor. Moreover, he endorsed murder in general. Demeter, perhaps understandably, considered that a license to kill the Lord Commander." It was a daring response, and Vespasian took a moment to gather his breath before continuing. "My lord, please, stop this madness. The Legion I have fought for for so long, your Legion, is degenerating into - into nothingness. Into the void of death."
"I know," Fulgrim said. "This is precisely what I wanted to avoid." He glanced at both Eidolon and Demeter as if they were squabbling children, and Demeter knew that was precisely what they had been - yet their struggle had almost ended in death. "Eidolon," the Phoenician said, "I will clarify two things. First of all, remembrancers must be punished for murder. The pursuit for artistic perfection should not involve criminal acts. Secondly, and more importantly, you do not lead this Legion. When you killed Kisteus, you killed your brother. That was too far. Both of you will be publicly censured for conduct extremely unbecoming of the Legion."
"Father," Eidolon let out, "the Second Captain threatened a senior officer!"
"And you have threatened Fabius - don't think I'm unaware. Marius Vairosean might not like it, but command chains change naturally, in the process of perfection. In another month, you may well be the junior officer."
Eidolon nodded. Demeter could not even move, much less speak, in uttermost awe and shame.
Then the glare of the Phoenician left, his anger spent and the melancholic humour dominating his classical features, and the Second Captain could think again. Censure was not too difficult a punishment for what he had done, what he had almost done; he could easily have been executed, like Verona. Perhaps Fulgrim thought there was already too much death among his children.
"Thank you," he said.
"Why?" the Primarch asked, seemingly ignoring him. "Why must you make this so difficult?"
He seemed distracted, nebulous somehow, and Demeter wondered again at how much was changing. Vairosean did not see it, locked within his training cages all day as he was, but some torrent had been unleashed after Laeran, a torrent which was now filling up the pool of tolerance and spilling out into madness.
"Demeter," the Phoenician instructed, "bring Serena d'Angelus to me. Her, I will have to kill, no matter how beautiful her paintings. We will meet in the front of the vessel, at the Navigator's hall."
Demeter didn't wait for further instructions. He respectfully went to do his duty, remembering Verona's execution as he did so. This was different; Demeter did not argue that d'Angelus had to be punished. But as he crossed the Triumphal Way and gazed at Eidolon's beloved mutilated skulls, the Second Captain found himself wondering if there was no other way.
There is none. If she was to be imprisoned, Fulgrim would be saying he had erred in executing Verona, and he did not.
Yet for all that the Phoenician was now trying to stop his Legion from going too far down that path, Demeter felt the purity of his trust in his lord had been broken forever.
Perhaps it was his way of war. The precise opposite of Marius Vairosean, Demeter fought without excessive amounts of foreplanning, individualistically, emotionally. Vairosean said that his methods were perfection, but Demeter felt perfection included leaving time for other matters.
Like Vairosean, Demeter had not been at the Laeran temple that had changed the Legion's aesthetics; his gunship had crashed on the way, and he'd barely survived. He had taken up painting in the aftermath, drawing images that parodied traditional war art; they had smoothly turned into images parodying post-Laeran art, creating which was becoming more and more difficult as post-Laeran art became more and more ridiculous.
Entering d'Angelus' studio, Demeter was immediately struck by the smell. Blood, sweat, salt, various perfumes, body waste, industrial waste and much, much more assaulted his olfactory organs. Demeter was a Space Marine, and his body could take punishment on a demidivine scale; but this was too much. Immediately, the Second Captain of the Emperor's Children retched into a corner.
Serena d'Angelus didn't even notice him. She was crying and painting with the tears, which dried into nothingness as soon as they came into contact with the paper.
The odor crushed Demeter's melancholy, and the Second Captain decided that anyone who created it - he vomited again - deserved to die. "Humph," he said.
d'Angelus turned around. "This is my newest work," she said, "The Meaninglessness of Life. It's - oh. You're here to kill me?"
"I'm here to take you to the Phoenician," Demeter truthfully said, and dragged the remembrancer out. His nose was elated.
"May I - may I see Ostian Delafour before the end?" d'Angelus asked, and Demeter suddenly realized just how much radiation she was emitting. Fortunately, he was fairly sure he wasn't risking serious damage, but he hurriedly put his helmet on and turned rad-shields to maximum nevertheless.
And this, he remembered, was supposedly one of the remembrancers least affected by Laeran.
"I will summon him. Gaius Caphen," he voxed, "call remembrancer Ostian Delafour to the navigator's hall."
They walked through the winding corridors of the Pride of the Emperor, and as his sensors reported various extremes of chemicals in the air, Solomon Demeter swore to never take his helmet off in the remembrancers' section again. In one spot, an odd reddish growth hung from the ceiling; after banging his head on it, Demeter voxed a sergeant to clean it up, reminding him to put on his helm before doing so.
The navigator's hall was at the front of the ship. It was more or less the community center for the ship's human inhabitants, including the remembrancers. The hall itself was a private space no one but Navigator Cranutus intruded on; but outside, a lounge of sorts extended for several hundred meters.
The region was undecorated, the only part within the Pride of the Emperor to be such. Therefore, it served as a neutral region of sorts, one where both those who had seen the Laeran temple and those who had not could meet without tearing each other's throats out about - well, previously Demeter assumed it was simply the art style, but now he suspected the smell had something to do with it too.
Not all post-Laeran works were particularly malodorous, but Primarch, that studio!
Fulgrim himself was already there as Demeter and d'Angelus entered between the pipe-covered walls, as well as Eidolon and Lucius of the 13th - the latter was perhaps the single Space Marine most devoted to the Legion's decay. There were rumors he was involved with a female remembrancer - utterly impossible, of course, given Astarte physiology, but demonstrative of how people felt about the decadent, proud Captain.
Ostian Delafour, a sculptor, entered seconds after Demeter. "Why am I here?" he sputtered. "I - oh." He deeply bowed to Fulgrim.
"Why is he here?" the Primarch asked.
"The remembrancer requested it," Demeter explained.
"Very well," Fulgrim stated. He took out his blade, taken from the Laeran temple. "When I was originally gifted this blade," he noted, "there was a Warp entity in it. The Emperor cleansed it, but the markings, the promises of doom, are still there. Today they promise doom for you, Serena d'Angelus. For murder of two crew members on my ship, I condemn you to death."
Cranutus - Demeter wasn't sure when the Navigator had appeared in the lounge - smiled. He was as close to a leader as the non-remembrancer crew had, given that the captain's chair officially and indisputably belonged to Fulgrim. Indeed, that was probably for this reason that the execution was taking place in the lounge and not the Heliopolis. It was clear the Navigator desired vengeance for Terpesi and Taodor, and Demeter remembered that when he had pressed his blade against Eidolon's throat - a horrible, senseless mistake - he had been smiling as well.
"Lucius," the Phoenician said with a tragic air, "I will not sully my hands with the blood of this pathetic woman. Execute her."
Fulgrim handed the 13th Captain the blade. Lucius moved d'Angelus closer to himself, into the center of some sort of symbol. The woman looked to Delafour, but the uncondemned remembrancer only glanced at Lucius and nodded.
He was not afraid, Demeter recognized with some surprise. Perhaps Delafour, having been with the fleet for a long time, was simply used to having Emperor's Children around him. He certainly hadn't been afraid during Demeter's visits to his studio, to discuss the philosophy of art. The remembrancers were both averting their eyes from Fulgrim, however; it was impossible to get used to a Primarch.
Lucius' blade swung down slowly- not because of the illusionary nature of time at deciding moments, but simply because the 13th Captain was being dramatic. At the last instant, the Laeran blade swung faster. It collided with d'Angelus' neck, and Demeter watched the remembrancer's blonde head roll to the floor.
And then there were daemons.
