Monris Rekesten had a lot of thinking to do, which happened to be what made him the most happy.
It was a defining characteristic of his, even as his parents had been told by his teachers that their son had a gift worthy of sending him onward to the Schola Progenium after his studies with them. Perhaps, they had said, even a position with the Adeptus Terra, the elite corps of Imperial Civil Servants answerable only to the Emperor himself.
His parents had been rather disbelieving. Was this the same boy who had a new girl on his arm every other week? The same one with a constant rippling, crackling wit, with a thousand friends and a languid ease? An Adeptus Terra man?
His parents had shrugged their shoulders and trusted the teachers, which was good, for Monris Rekesten was just as good as his teachers had promised, and after the great Necrontyr Master Herald of Serenity himself had declared that he had nothing left to teach him in the ways of logic, the Emperor of Mankind had thought fit to introduce this young prodigy to one of his younger Imperial Agents, who was quickly developing a reputation for being fast, thorough, and sharp as a tack; touring the facilities and picking up slack in his Imperial Majesty's name. Her short skirt and long jacket were famous throughout the galaxy; synonymous with meticulous precision and a fine eye for detail.
It was, in a sense, a professional match made in heaven.
The gaunt man in the severe, unadorned clothing was right now sitting in a dark room, the perfect environs for his mind in isolation, churning through a mountain of data contained in the combined data networks of the entire Imperial data net, a truly monumental store of knowledge that only the great White Library of the Eldar outmatched. An unobtrusive cable snaked from behind his ear to an interface leading into an understated computer console set into the wall of his quarters. His eyes were closed, but they flickered slightly as his mind's eye processed each individual piece of data that fed through him. He could have gone down to the surface with the rest of his partner's entourage, but he had a liking for space. It was calm and silent, serene, reminiscent of the calm he had been taught by an ancient Necrontyr. And so he had decided to stay on board the Starry Jupiter, an ancient trade cruiser part of his Imperial Majesty's personal space fleet and now their home. He smiled to himself as he thought of its owner.
Oh no, don't worry about it, Alera! I haven't taken her for a spin in nearly a millennium. Take her! Look after her, and she'll do right by you.
Then the flickering stopped as the gentle ticking from the data port ceased. Silence reigned in the room, broken only by the gentle hum of air extractors. The Investigator's eyelids began to flit even faster as his brain began to correlate the data he'd already gone through with what he saw.
He murmured something under his breath, which was quite out of character for a man for whom steely control was a way of life, taught not only by character but by beings who had not felt anything but serenity in over a billion years.
"…sure she's to do with it?"
There was more silence, but loud clacking from the data bank.
"Yes, Master Horus. I'll see to it."
Monris Rekesten opened his eyes, mindful that they were reflecting something he had not felt since he was a child.
They were creased with uncertainty.
Meanwhile, Ally Terenas looked into her latest victim's face, and she liked what she saw.
Granted, he didn't have that aura of gentle confidence that emanated from her good friend and partner in crime, Garen Danar, which she found so bewitchingly attractive, but his eyes were sky blue and his face well cut, with a pleasant demeanor that hinted at hidden depths and cheekiness. She wanted to work him out, which, for a girl in the Adeptus Mechanicus, would be confused and conflated for being in flaming lust for a human being. Not that it would be wrong.
"My name is Errold Flynn," he said. "Pleased to meet you. You would be?" He extended his hand in a polite handshake.
"Allena Caelia Terenas af99386b," she replied, impishly. "My friends call me Ally. You may call me Doctor Terenas." She took his hand and gave it a firm shake. If he was surprised by her strength, he did not show it.
"Of course, Doctor," he said. He gestured to the rather full bar and the patrons chatting, dancing, or engaging in other pursuits. "It's not often that I see an Adept around here," he said, smiling. "Can I get you a drink?"
"You may, as long as I pay for it," she smiled, "and as long as I get to monopolize your attention for at least the next ten minutes."
The next ten minutes were, indeed, just as Ally had expected. He was pleasant, charming, affable, and his eyes were very, very easy to get lost in.
She was by now tilting her head to the side and very subconsciously flicking her hair around her ear when one of her cogitators had finally, after screaming any number of advisories at her, informed her that she was now walking in the pleasant Cadian night, never quite totally dark with the gentle spiral of the Eye of Harmony up in the sky.
How on Earth did I get here? She asked herself.
Subject Flynn suggested a walk away from the crowds and noise. Subject exhibiting mildly increased heart rate, dilated pupils, increased blood flow to the ge..
That's quite enough, she told herself.
Before she could answer herself, an earnest looking young man approached the two of them.
"An adept!" he said, smiling at her in a friendly way. The man was plainly but nearly dressed, a purple vestment over some rather conservative looking clothes, with a hint more ornamentation than she would have expected on a priest of Slaanesh. He was clearly a long time missionary, of the kind that dotted imperial worlds and asked you politely to perhaps see if you'd like to join the church of Khorne, or Nurgle, or even the Adeptus Mechanicus. "I hope you don't mind if I speak to your friend here?"
Ally smiled. His demeanour was infectious. "Of course," she said. "But I'd like him back afterwards! I'm not after his soul!"
Next to her, Errold Glynn raised an aristocratic eyebrow, his mouth quirking into a tiny smile. The Magos turned to him and smirked.
The priest nodded, and took a data slate from his robes and proffered it to Ally's aristocratic companion. "I trust, sir, that you know of Slaanesh?" His smile was truly infectious now, his teeth seemingly perfect.
Errold Glynn responded that he hadn't flown the Imperium's spaceways for fifteen years and remained ignorant of the Churches of the Lords of Order.
"Oh no, not that," the priest said, quite affably. He gestured non-committally, and Ally's cogitators picked up any number of pleasant smelling esters emanating from him, mixed in with several strong male… and female pheromones.
It is odd, Mistress, she said to herself, but not entirely outside the powers of the God of Love?
The adept gave herself a mental shrug.
"You see, the churches are… what can we say…" the priest pondered the thought for a moment. "They're not really… into what the essence of the Lords of Order are. You know, with their churches and their hierarchies and their prayers. I like to think we're worshipping a more pure version of their ideals…"
It was as boring to Ally as would it be boring to a baseline for her to explain IP addressing and proxy protocols over the entire Imperial Aethernet, but one of her cogitators kept a good record of what the missionary was saying, even as his carrying voice began to draw a curious crowd around him. She noticed some of the local Arbites keep a careful but loose watch on the action, more for crowd control than anything else. Freedom of religion was, after all, a guaranteed right in the Imperium.
The preacher went on. "Of course!" he addressed the crowd, and they were rapt at this glorious looking man in the exquisite robes with the angelic appearance, "we who are worshippers of the Gods of… Order, wish to spend our time communing purely with our lords, with the great spirits that inhabit the sky above us!" and he looked up, as did many others, at the great, calming swirl of the Eye of Harmony above. "And yet we can't be left in peace! Did you know that Omabo Karab asked us to file a Tax Return the other day? His government has been asking our followers to file Tax Returns before they can worship Slaanesh the way he/she was supposed to be!"
He waited for the slight murmur of discontent to brew through the crowd before starting again. "You know, we don't want to deal with government bureaucrats who have to always keep asking if we're religions or not! Tax! He cried, almost laughing. Who cares about Tax and governments of men when we can all be thinking about serving the Gods?"
Amongst the general consensus of concern for the government's taxation of such an obviously spiritual group, Ally caught eye of two figures in the crowd who seemed just to be milling through the crowd, and for a moment she stiffened with what she thought was a strange unease, when she saw the clerical bob of one of them, of a sanctioned priest or priestess of a church. But then she saw the pilot's cap on the head of the man next to the priestess in the crowd, and how they weren't interested in anything around them but each other, she relaxed.
She saw Garen smile, and laugh, and gently take the hand of the priestess of Khorne. Raelin had snuggled into him almost by reflex, even though they both knew that she was far stronger than he was. Lost in their own little world, they disappeared into the happy crowds as life continued to ebb around them in the night lights, completely oblivious to the preacher and the crowd he had drawn.
As the priest of Slaanesh continued to cheerfully harangue the crowd and her companion, Ally smiled wistfully after her friend for a reason she couldn't quite understand.
Garen Danar thought over what he had seen that night, and he was sure he saw someone he recognized in the crowds, especially near that rather engaging preacher. But he dismissed the idea as he opened the door to the small but comfortable apartment that he and Raelin shared.
It had been a good night, all things considered. Cadia was not one of the most beautiful planets in the galaxy for no reason, when scant light years away, the concentrated power of every single living thing's love, hope, and dreams manifested itself in a permanent light show.
"Are you sure it's OK to leave your boss like that?" Raelin Clarinel asked. She was breathing slightly heavily, and she panted slightly.
"She said Monris was going to be with her, and that I needed the night off."
"Amazing boss," Raelin commented, to no one in particular. She got a muted grunt in agreement as a response. She yelped slightly.
Feminine peals of laughter began to echo through her apartment.
Garen spoke up. His voice was somewhat hoarse. "So what did you think of your night after vespers?"
"I don't know, dear. My night hasn't finished yet."
More laughter, until finally giggles, and one final, happy sigh.
Alera Jumil took a sip of Ulara tea from the cup in her hand, and looked at the two bleary eyed figures trying hard not to look too dead across the table from her.
"Late night, huh?" she asked, to no one in particular.
Ally Terenas and Garen Danar stared daggers of hatred at their boss from across the table. If they noticed the somewhat haggard look she sported, they did not comment. Her other Investigator beamed, having found a good cup of Tanna, playing with some odd application or game on his data slate.
The Imperial Agent ignored them and smiled wanly. "Well, since you've had a night to re-acquaint yourselves with Cadia, let's get to business, shall we?" she motioned to two data slates on the desk in front of her, and slid them to the pilot and Magos.
"What did you find out?" she asked.
Ally spoke up first, but the first thing out of her mouth was a burst of Machine, which she quickly converted to standard low gothic. "Everyone I have met thinks they are just a new branch of the Churches of the Gods of Order. Charismatic pastors, priests who really 'know' you and how you're feeling… nothing more suspicious than say, the Church of Khaine the Constant-Handed." She fished out some data pads from her robes. "Some pamphlets they handed out to me last night." She shrugged as she put them on the table and slid them to everyone. "They don't look that threatening. Or that different, even."
Garen's brow perked up slightly, for he knew what his wife thought about those petty heretics, ecumenism notwithstanding.
"They seemed to harp on a lot about being able to worship who they liked in peace, and not being bothered by the government about tax. Kept going on about it. They all said that they and their followers were entitled to relief from it and they didn't want the government to tax an obviously religious organization, official recognition be damned."
Alera gestured at one of the data slates she had put on the table. "I've had a quick look through the system's tax revenues. They've been dropping precipitously. A lot of people are claiming the religious exemption because they're all members of one of the churches of the lords of order." She pointed to the other one. "Those are the fully audited accounts and rolls of the churches of the Lords of Order."
The number of people claiming exemption was growing exponentially faster over the past two years…
"I am sorely tempted," Alera said, "to just start prosecutions for false tax returns, but based on what you've said I'm going to start a riot if I do." She looked around the table.
The languid figure sipping at his tea spoke up. "And still Minister-Master Horus has no idea who these people are, because none of the Lords of Order know who these people are." He sat up slightly, as if bringing his full intellect to bear. "We also have to consider the matter of our young friend Lena Fyrovski."
The rest of the table turned to him, for he had said that last sentence in a tone that meant that he didn't know exactly what the ramifications of that consideration were, which, in the case of Monris Rekesten, Imperial Scholar and Investigator, was an extremely rare occurrence. "I think she has something to do with all this."
Monris looked up. "Master Horus believes Khorne is… is frightened of the vision he showed her."
He let the shocked silence linger for a moment.
"The physical avatar of courage is afraid of what that girl knows."
Imperial Agent Alera Jumil frowned. Monris sat next to her, staring impassively at the young woman trying to articulate what she had just gone through. It was not an unkind stare; an appraisal, the bringing to bear of skills earned over several decades in the Emperor's secret service.
"And what did the voices describe?' Alera asked, one hand reaching for a cup of Ulara tea, the other typing manically into a data slate as she took more notes.
Lena Fyrovski, comfortably seated now in one of the comfortable chairs in Alera's office on board the Starry Jupiter, a and in loose fitting robes, closed her eyes and took a deep breath to calm herself, and think about how best to explain what she'd heard from her unseemly antics in the temple of the God of Valour.
"It is a galaxy like ours," she started, her voice low, quiet. "Earth, Cadia, all the planets of the Emperor's realm…" her voice began to choke, and she abruptly stopped. Alera felt her Investigator fidget, as if to move over to comfort her, but a gentle gesture with her hand bade him sit back. Monris Rekesten looked askance at her, before he leaned back in his chair, his usual noncommittal look on his face.
"It's all right," she said. "I can find it out myself." Lena looked up in surprise, as the Agent's eyes began to glow a gentle blue and she felt a kind, subtle presence enter her mind.
May I? Alera thought, and after a quick, mental nod of Lena's head, she was in.
Alera stood on a flat plain, the sky crackling overhead with thunder.
It looked familiar. It certainly looked almost like Cadia itself; but where beautiful spires arched into the sky in the familiar outlines in her memory, the buildings here were squat, flat, almost…
Bunkers.
She looked around, saw milling citizens, all dressed in full combat gear. Frowned, puzzled, as she wondered where she could be to come to a barracks where everyone was permanently in combat uniform, with no sight of rest fatigues. Gasped in horror, as she saw a young boy, no older than twelve, dressed in uniform and wielding a Lasgun of such a boxy and primitive manufacture that she had not seen in anything but an Imperial Guard barracks museum. There was a haunted look in his eyes, that of a combat veteran, and Alera's gut recoiled at the thought that the boy had already seen too much death in barely over a decade of life.
The thunder crackled overhead, and Alera Jumil looked up. She saw it then.
It was the Eye of Harmony, the great Warp Storm that was the temporal seat of the Lords of Order, and she shivered with an irrational fear she couldn't quite explain. Where the Eye of her memory glowed with the serene tranquility that gave it its name, that provided a second focus for navigators in the Warp to trilaterate along with the Astronomican and the Pulse Beacon at Ultima Macharia, here in the rowling storms light years wide was only an unreasoning unease, a feeling of…
Terror.
Alera felt rather confused by all this.
Suddenly Alera was on a sandy world, an explorator from the Adeptus Mechanicus and his retinue unearthing some ancient relic; the blocky, black outlines of the great Teachers, and their four masters. Her view reached in with the team as they entered the dark space, until they found one of the ancient rooms where the Teachers had lain in sleep, waiting for more worthy students. She watched, fascinated, as the figure with the symbol of a cogwheel and skull, not a book, performed an ancient ritual of activation over one of the sleeping Necrontyr in its tomb.
It powered up, and suddenly Alera saw the grinning rictus of its skull manufacture, the cruel light in its eyes as they came back to life, and she almost screamed as one of the gentle ancients who had given their souls to the pursuit of knowledge and the mastery of their emotions to younger races began to systematically flay every single member of the explorator team alive.
She did not like what she saw at all now.
She saw Orks cut down defenceless, unarmed civilians crying for mercy, laughing at their casual breaches of their most ironclad codes of honour, longer lived than humanity. She saw Commoragh, not as the shining, bright example of civilization to all mankind, but as a place all men would fear as an endless nightmare. Where there was once a Squat homeworld, there was but a charred rock.
She saw Space Marines fighting other Space Marines, one a mockery of the clean cut armour of his Imperial Majesty's designs. Looked on in horror as a Commissar of the ranks shot one of the men under his care for daring to request relief; saw the hideous spectacle of the man she'd been talking to just a week previously, his gentle smile and mischievous good humour reflected on his face, now twisted into a dead husk on a piece of machinery a continent wide.
Then she saw a woman with long, snow white hair and a dark complexion, all too familiar a sight; a hard glint in her eye and a cruel twist to her bearing, as she looked over a planet filled with a billion men and women overrun by some freak onslaught of the daemons that eternally kept the Astartes and Guard and Minister-Master Horus busy in her galaxy, all alternately praying *Praying*? to the Emperor, finding what solace they could, and begging her, or *any* human to save them from damnation of the chaos that had overtaken their world. She looked at the last transmission from the planet; a defeated Governor, accepting his fate. The woman looked up from the naval station of an Imperial starship.
"Yes, You have clearance, Captain." She nodded at the hard, flint like face of the man in uniform next to her.
"Commence Exterminatus."
Alera Jumil wanted to stop watching what happened next, but she could not.