~The Hardest Hue to Hold~
~802. M30~
~Segmentum Pacificus~
~Colchis~
~The Emperor of Mankind, The Hero with a Thousand Faces~
His daughters were getting along well with each other. Lofn, Hathor and Athena had formed a sort of trio, mostly bound through constant spars among themselves. Fulgrim had taken it upon herself to watch over Danu and Madonna, forming the second trio within the wider set. Lucem himself had decided to start taking his naps alongside Atalanta, the youngest and thus theoretically most vulnerable. He was still reluctant to ever speak except to ask about the next deployment, but this was a good start for the boy.
He let his gaze roam the ruined courtyard. Limestone turned partially into slag and glass, whatever symbols once here burned away, piles of melted autogun shots and scraps of destroyed equipment. But rarely were there any corpses, most of which burned away or scavenged, bones removed with precision. Piles of ash in corners where the whipping desert winds could not reach them.
Athena spent much of her time with Danu and Fulgrim speaking on matters of engineering and construction, a shared interest of the three. Lofn spent much of her time with Madonna, specifically to tease her in the way elder siblings are ought to do with their younger ones, and in challenges of coming up with increasingly elaborate boasts and insults. Hathor did her best to make time for all of her sisters, Atalanta especially. Atalanta, of course, was still in her infancy, and acted as infants usually did. Lucem spent all of his time slumbering, although now he slumbered near his sisters.
He let his stride take him up and over the ruined tower, the crumbled stone of which served as an adequate walkway for him to go up to the next terrace of the fortress courtyard. Just as before, filled with scorch marks, slagged stonework, melted metal scraps, and symbols turned to ash. Bodies empty of bones and meat, just scraps of equipment. He breathed in deeply, tasting the scent that lingered in this place.
The sunfire of certainty.
Their studies were going well, from last he heard from Aristocles. The Sciences, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics were all more than acceptable in pace, although some took to the core fields better than others. Language, Histories, Governance, Warfare were in a similar situation, some of his daughters taking to the subjects better than others. Psykery was possibly their most disparate field, but it was still within acceptable parameters. Few of his daughters were particularly enthusiastic to learn, although each saw benefits in specific uses. Madonna took to those lessons with immense gusto, devouring all she could, only halted in certain fields by his specific and absolute warnings.
Some things no man should delve into, communion with the horrors was one subject that he would be gladdened to eradicate entirely. They were told that predators lurk in the warp, and that they should never attempt any action save their utter destruction. Not allies, not creatures to tame, parasites and predators. His comparison to the creatures that sucked on the souls of sorcerers on Prospero caused a grave look to come over Madonna's normally unbreachable mask of confidence.
His custodians and psykana, moving in pairs, returned from their perimeter searches, each shaking their heads minutely in turn as they came within his gaze. His contemplative frown remained on his face as he considered the situation in full.
This planet was Colchis. He had remembered reading articles of its discovery and colonization. Strange edifices scattered about a rather unremarkably bare planet, indications of ancient xenos life, but little factual could be drawn up about their purpose. Last he remembered hearing about it was some time before the Machine Rebellion, and the information given to him by his supposed son told him little of particular concern.
Information of what he knew of the world in the history-line that he returned from. Not much save that it was eventually destroyed.
Colchis wasn't quite destroyed, he thought as he stepped over slag and ashes, but it could be in a generation or two. This was the last proper city on the planet, the rest of the inhabitants living in scattered tribes and nomadic clans wandering about the planet from oasis to oasis. Considering the already barren natural wealth on the planet and scraps of once-functioning technologies now turned to ash, the people here were doomed to die on the planet without much hope of escaping into the void.
His daughter, Seventeen, Primarch of the Imperial Heralds, was supposed to be on this planet. She was not. He supposed that this confirmed Malum's letter in part. He did claim that he intended to retrieve Seventeen.
He didn't say what he apparently decided to do to the population. The Emperor estimated that perhaps a third of the population was slain over the course of one day. He walked over to the origin-point for a cone of slag on the stone ground, before drawing his sword and going through the motions of a swing.
He imagined a cone of flame coming from his blade, furrowed his brow, and bent his knees slightly. Not letting his arm fully extend, he mimed another swing. It didn't quite line up, but it was good enough for an estimate.
…Three and a third meters or so? His son was on the tall side, good for warring.
He let his gaze trail to each spot of flame, not covering all the angles that defenders might fire down from. His son had a small ranger force with him, and judging from the ruined towers, at least one war-walker of some variant. Assuming he wasn't rotating his troops, that would be very few to conduct such a lengthy purge as this, especially with how soon each city was ruined after one another.
Multiple ships, or rapid transportation, or both. In addition to a small force of highly elite warriors to accompany him. The occasional grooves and scratches in the stonework told him that many were mounted on some sort of clawed beast of roughly similar scale to a light tank. These were the Eldar then? He did not know them to use clawed-steeds, although perhaps the 'Exodites' were different.
His son was wielding a psychic flame similar to his own. He wondered how well he taught the boy, or if it was simply engineered into him. The sword scale was comparable…
He furrowed his brow, before adjusting his grip and swinging his sword again. Wielding the blade as if it were larger than it was compared to his frame. This time, the cone of slag lined up much better.
It was not a similarly sized sword then. It was a near-perfect match. Perhaps even the same blade. It was not his best work, certainly not a primary arm, but it was a perfectly serviceable side-arm. Perhaps he gave the blade to the boy as a gift, in the once-future history, it would make sense.
He turned his gaze, and looked out of the courtyard towards what should have been a large port city. Only piles of rubble and dunes greeted his gaze.
His probable-son, wielding a similar sword to himself, took a small army of veteran soldiers mounted on clawed creatures and a war-walker with a blade, and had marched on each city on this world. Each one was carefully destroyed of any banners and insignias, before being bombarded. This process was repeated for each and every major city along the waterways of the world, indicating rapid transports or multiple ships…
No, his probable-son was present at each. Rapid transport was required then.
The more important question was why. He breathed in again, letting the nostalgic scent of sunfire ash fill his lungs once more, and exhaling.
For some reason, his probable son decided that this world needed to be razed after retrieving Seventeen. The number of possible reasons were endless, he had yet to take measure of the boy, he knew not how or what he thought. Malum Caedo indicated a particular personality, however.
His probable-son had decided that this world needed to be punished, possibly destroyed.
The question was, does he trust the judgment? This world was still useful. Breathable atmosphere, abundant sea life, existing population, potential treasures in the city-scraps, land to build upon…
It was currently of very little use, however. Mostly barren waste and feudal populations, and now with utterly destroyed urban centers and no existing infrastructure of note. It would be a relatively expensive endeavor to bring this world to standards high enough to start effectively contributing to the wider Imperium. Pragmatically he lost little by writing off the loss of this world…
…But that would mean deciding to put conscious trust in the decision, the judgment, of a man he had not met. This was not a matter of tax law. This was a declaration of world-wide death. A scouring. A lashing. A punishment from the void above. Even if it was pragmatic, writing this world off would mean endorsing a sentencing that he did not know the crime of, only the punishment.
He let his gaze wander the horizon. The barren wastes and sands. The burning mirages and flickering air. The ash and slag of a scouring.
In the ashes of a million or more dead, he found his answer.
"Custodians, return to the Bucephalus and tell them to ready the Virus Bombardment. Psykana, return to your idler duties." The sentence of planetary execution came easily from his lips. "I sentence the planet Colchis to Exterminatus Extremis." He would trust the justice of his probable-son, and finish the boy's work here. He could live with the sin, should this prove to be the incorrect decision.
The boy had earned this much faith, at least.
Idly, he made a note to check up on his daughters before they began preparations for another warp-jump. He wouldn't be able to get off that blasted throne after they began, and it was a long ways to Barbarus.
—
From the archeotech cannons that lined the ribs of Bucephalus, mightest ship of the Imperium of Mankind, a series of grand and terrible weapons issued forth. They launched without sound, for all is silent in the void, and approached the barren and ravaged world named Colchis. Reaching the atmosphere, the shells around the deadly payload began to burn up, ablating under the friction of re-entry and slowly beginning to enter unto their next stages of deployment.
Soon, the shells had been sufficiently ablated to automatically deploy the second and third stage measures, slowing down the missiles gradually and bringing them to an almost gentle fall over the world. Once their internal cogitators had recorded that the missiles had been sufficiently slowed, it began to unleash the payload into the atmosphere.
The Life-Eater Virus was, in truth, barely a virus at all. It acted as such, certainly, propagating by digging into cell-structures, devouring the innards, reproducing rapidly enough to burst out, carried by wind or water or land to the next host and repeating the process. It performed all the expected functions of a deadly virus.
It was, in truth, a weapon of the Age of Technology. One used to wipe planets clean of all previous life, and leave a sea of ash in its wake.
The Life Eater Virus propagated over Colchis, covering the scant life and immediately beginning this process. Organic matter, wherever it was found on the surface, quickly began to break down and dissolve into primordial matter, undifferentiated organic mass composed of naught but the stuff that composes cells. This breakdown of organic matter beginning to release a highly flammable gas by-product, which rapidly began to take up a fraction of the world's atmosphere.
With good winds, the Virus can propagate over an entire world in less than an hour, a wave of foul air turning all living things into an ocean of destroyed cellular matter. With poor wind-conditions, the Virus may take a week to finish this process.
The original missiles took measure of the winds left in the wake of their initial bombardment, tasting it, cogitators onboard estimating the fraction of air that was now composed of the gas by-product. Once the atmosphere reached an acceptable threshold, the last stage of the weapon, stage five began. All missiles reaching consensus, a secondary weapon was enabled in their cores.
Simple melta-bombs.
Promptly detonating, the missiles turned into brief bonfires of white-hot chemical flames. On their own, this would mean little. With the atmosphere now containing a large fraction of highly-flammable byproduct for the semi-organic decay, these bonfires were merely the spark to light the pre-established chemical fuse.
The byproduct was immensely hot when it started to burn, especially so when it was accumulated in great enough amounts. Hot enough, indeed, to begin a chain reaction in the other gasses native to the atmospheres of all standard inhabitable worlds.
From an initial bombardment of a thousand scattered missiles over the surface of Colchis, a wave of burning sky washed forth. Not that any of the millions of inhabitants were alive still to see it at this point, reduced as they were to organic sea. A tidal wave of heat and pressure unlike any Colchis had witnessed prior, burning the highest layers of its oceans into steam.
In time, that steam would form rain, which would begin the natural process of healing the planet afterwards.
The planet now reduced to bare, nearly volcanic, rock and seas. All but the deepest parts of the world were utterly consumed by the Virus Bombardment, and then burned to ash, left to be washed away by rain. In ideal deployments of the weapon, the atmosphere was also ravaged to temporary uninhabitability.
Rock and Water were all that remained of Colchis after a period of two days.
A successful Virus bombardment was logged into the records of the Bucephalus.
—
Ghosts swarmed Colchis, the now-dead world. They covered it in the layer of immaterium, in the warp surround and covering materium. The shell of psychic awareness that encompassed all things. The ghosts crawled in the outer, most shallow layers of the psychic realm.
One by one, these ghosts were dragged into the deeper warp, nothing for them to cling to in the shallows now that Colchis had been executed, pulled in by the writhing narratives and twisting songs from more distant worlds. A rip-tide of thought that brought spirits into swarming corals.
These corals of warp were inhabited by predators. Swarming creatures of thought-energy and narrative, stirred into a frenzy by the injection of so many fresh souls, and now eagerly devouring everything they came across. A bloodbath of ghosts and the things that dwelt in the warp, just beyond the shallows.
These warp-predators were the least of all such things in the immaterium. They did not approach higher-order consumers, and fled at the scent of such creatures in their presence, hoping to hide their existences beneath and behind long-ossified narratives and songs near to them.
In the deeper-warp, just beyond the corals, directly above Colchis sat a higher-order entity. A fragment of something far grander and more terrible than what any mere warp-predator could assume the forms of. Living maelstroms of thought-energy and long fossilized narratives that encompassed such vast swathes of the warp that they ceased to be entities, and instead became part of the ocean itself.
Four grand seas that composed the immaterium ocean of the local galaxy. Each an ecosystem in its own right, each propagating in the manner all life was bound to. To consume and grow. These seas were named the Chaos Gods.
The entity was a fragment of one such Godsea. A being that composed a small part of the greater whole, bound to and a part of its ecosystem. A daemon.
The daemon was sitting in place, legs crossed in the manner of wise men, unbothered by the swirls of narratives about it, and focused on the world below. Its body was of a smokeless flame, and six arms extended from it. One set of arms was clasped in prayer to its greater whole, one set gently pressing stray souls into wax-seals and closing papyrus scrolls with their yolk, and the last set busy with quill in hand and recording what the three heads bore witness to.
The heads looked in all three directions, each with three eyes and each face covered by a veil of silks and bronze. One face was young, one face mature, the last old, and over the heads was a halo of sixty fiery rods gently revolving about. About it were the winds of whispered truths, and the scrolls of history unvarnished, and this was the domain the daemon brought about it.
This daemon was a prince and a presence, one of the manifold clerks of the Lord of Change, who made it their business to record the fates of worlds. Currently, he was writing a special report on what had occurred here. Orders from a higher position in the Bureaucracy of Fate, one which he followed dutifully. A simple copy of his regular reporting.
The scribe did his best to ignore the distant weeping. Annoying creatures.
He did not pause in his record-keeping, but his attention was caught by the approach of another entity in the warp. More than a mere warp-predator.
A coursing beast, bounding on four immense and thickly muscled legs. Eyes that burned as smoky flame and claws that shed blood with their tread. The head of the beast was hairless, immense and thickly muscled jaws filled with savage teeth and gently carrying a number of long bones. Behind the head was a crest of horn and frill, which were tattered and frayed, and a thick pelt of metal hairs.
One of the many messenger-dogs of the Red God, who ferried the words of commandment carved on bone on the behalf of daemon-lords. Each paw-print bought with it a trail of brimstone and brass, and this was the domain the daemon brought with it.
The beast raced up to the Scribe, slowing in its boundsome pace as it neared before stopping a distance aways and sitting back on its laurels. Growling through the thin bones it delicately carried, the beast began to speak in the language of daemons, Ennuncia.
"Scribe."
The scribe acknowledged the beast with all appropriate courtesies. "Carrier-Hound, Prince of Coursing Beasts, of the Line of Karanak. You are before a Scribe of Tzeentch, on what business?"
The Carrier-Hound exhaled, and fumes of burning air escaped its nostrils. "A report of what occurred here. You will provide a copy to me. My Lord demands it."
"Your Lord is not my Lord." The scribe spoke simply, not pausing in its duties even as the Carrier-Hound prepared to pounce and maul. "But my Lord has foreseen this. I inscribe the report as I speak."
The Carrier-Hound returned to its haunches, glaring balefully at the Scribe as he worked. Lips drawn back over the thin bones, thin and delicate etchings of words could be seen covering their surface, part of the daemon's own duties. "Hurry then, Scribe." The Hound snarled out, bloodlust restrained by duty alone.
In the ambient wails of the warp, the two daemons sat. One in furious waiting, the other in deliberate and articulate record-keeping.
The weeping grew closer, and both daemons reacted. The Carrier-Hound in another snarl of fury and the Scribe in faintest hopes that the particular fate it was foreseeing did not come to pass.
But the fate did come to pass, and it was a most unfortunate one.
A form of living flesh and flora came stumbling up to the two daemons present, like all of its kind it was plump and sodden and wretched to behold. Hair fell down as damp vines and branches, crowned by a vibrant and blooming garland. Eyes were watery and narrowed in sorrow, and tears trailed down her face. A black dress clung to her form, wet with blood and bile, and in her arms she carried a swaddled babe.
But no matter how she pressed the babe against her breast, it would not begin to drink. For the babe's eyes were milky, and the swaddling was heavy with yellow corpse-wax. A mantle of fungus grew from the child's head and her shoulders. A corpse, unable to be blessed by living infection, and a most miserly thing to behold.
A Weeping Sister, a daughter of the Father of Flies, who mourned for all those lost to dreadful death, who would never again feel the blessing of wondrous life coursing through their veins and innards and about their skin.
She stumbled forth in despair, but the child is not what she wept for. Each step brought with it the life that fed on death, and the cold wet rot that it thrived within, and such was the domain the daemon brought with her.
In near-hysterics, she cried out. "All gone! All gone! The children of Colchis are dead and remain dead! Do you not see the tragedy?!"
The Carrier-Hound growled but did not respond, having little patience for the cries. The Scribe, provoked by the endless weeping he had already been forced to endure, saw an opportunity to shoo away a nuisance.
"The destiny of this world is of no great concern. All is within the accountings of Fate."
At this, the hound snarled again. "Within the accountings?! A most critical pawn is dead and you declare it within the accountings? The plans of your Lord are crumbling!"
The scribe hummed, a sour note which wove souls into wax. "Ever-crumbling, Ever-growing. The plans of my Lord are endless, and account for all things. Your Lord understands this, I should hope."
"My Lord is beginning to understand how useless his fellows are at waging war! This supposed alliance is a waste of our armies." The Carrier-Hound paced back and forth in fury, flames catching about its tread and flaring briefly.
"It is not a war!" The Weeping Sister wailed out. Collapsing to her knees and squeezing the swaddled corpse, she continued. "It is salvation! Saving them from death with the blessings of my Lord! Not causing it!"
The scribe dipped his quill in the ink of black ambitions once more, and continued to write as he replied. "It is neither. War implies equal foes. Salvation implies a stagnate outcome. It is a leashing of their paths and actions. Surely you understand the taming of beasts, Carrier-Hound? Surely you understand the desire to change their fated deaths, Weeping Sister? Have faith, all is within the accountings of my Lord."
"I fail to see how, in truth. The performance of your Lord has been most lacking thus far." A critique carried on the winds and all three daemons noticed at once, only after the words had been declared.
A figure dressed in fine but simple wear emerged from the misty warp-winds. The figure was dressed in black with hints of gold in his buckles and bracelets. His face was hidden behind a veil of ambiguity, perfectly plain and indistinguishable in a crowd of many, unrecognizable among a host of others. He held to the reins of two other daemons, lesser in status to he, and tormented with piercings in their flesh and rods in their orifices.
These smooth-skinned daemons were clad in unremarkable garments, and they were tied to an unrecognizable carriage upon which the figure who called out rode upon. The carriage was burdened with luggage and tools, all the things required for theaters to perform, and its wheels turned in any direction without road or track.
A Master of Ceremonies, an arranger of affairs required for the performances of others, laboring plainly and without bringing attention to himself for his Prince of Pleasures. About him was the scent of spice and the waft of perfume, and such was the domain the daemon brought with him.
At his sight, the Carrier-Hound growled, the Weeping Sister despaired, and the Scribe of Tzeentch hoped he would leave immediately.
The Master of Ceremonies gave a charming smile, before continuing his words. "Of course, no offense meant. It's natural to have mistakes pile up without competent staffing. Still, I'd say the current plans are quite impossible to go ahead with, an emergency alteration is required."
The hound growled out, furious that he was in agreement with the newcomer daemon. "The time allocated to the godlings of the Anathema has been a waste. That strategem is too wasteful to recover at this point. New prey must be located."
The Scribe nodded in agreement, happy that his fellows were able to see the benefits in change. "A path had already been charted for this scenario. New plans are already drafted, and are being distributed as we speak. I predict that your lords will be quite pleased with them."
The Weeping Sister wailed again. "The godlings are lost! Given up on! Poor babes, abandoned by the blessings! Will we not go to save them!?"
The Carrier Hound snarled at the uselessness. The Scribe of Tzeentch sighed, having seen this outcome. The Master of Ceremonies gave a polite smile to conceal his amusement.
Nodding, the Master of Ceremonies whipped his reins once, causing the lesser daemons to writhe and jolt in delighted sensation. "I had only come by to greet my fellows. I'll need to get a move on to get things ready for the next stage, as my fellow Masters of Ceremonies are likely already working on, you understand?"
The Scribe nodded, as he handed off the finished scroll to the Carrier-Hound. The Carrier-Hound, showing much restraint, delicately took the message with his teeth. The scroll was clutched in the mouth already full of bones, looking quite out of place. Snarling and immediately bounding off, the Carrier-Hound was soon out of sight.
With a jaunty wave, the Master of Ceremonies faded into the warp beyond as well.
Leaving the Scribe of Tzeentch and the Weeping Sister.
He hoped she would go away.
She kept wailing miserly. Utterly bent on not changing her spot.
He made a note to petition his Lord for a change in position.