New chapter. As always, the next chapter is up on my P-a-t-r-e-o-n, here: h*t*t*p*s :/ w*w*w . p*a*t*r*e*o*n user - ? - u = 52718582 (remove the spaces and stars)
"So, this is a dreamstone," Malcador murmured, eyeing the gem on the table warily.
He had heard of the legendary Tears of Isha before but had never seen one. They had been rare and prized even within the Eldar Dominion itself, and a myth outside of it. Even the most daring human adventurers had never laid their hands on one, and Malcador had not been one of those in his youth anyway. His adventures had come long after he had surpassed the lifespan of ordinary humans.
The object was innocuous on the surface, and ordinary men and women might have mistaken it for nothing more than a particularly high-quality emerald. But Malcador could both see and sense the power it was crafted from, a power he had grown familiar with over these past few years.
The embodiment of said power nodded from where she was sitting. "Yes. I would like you to test it, to see how it works and how the sensation feels to you."
Malcador arched an eyebrow at the Emperor, who was standing on the other side of the table, scowling at the gem with a mixture of interest and…envy. A strange emotion for the Anathema, but not entirely surprising.
"It needs to be done." The Emperor answered Malcador's unspoken question, though his gaze did not waver from the gem. "If done, the benefits could be enormous, and you are the ideal candidate for testing it."
A way to shield the minds and souls of psykers from the predations of Chaos, to wield the power of the Immaterium safely…yes, that would indeed be an incredible boon.
Yet, Malcador's instincts screamed that relying on Isha for yet another critically important asset was dangerous. Yes, she had promised to teach the Emperor how to make dreamstones of his own, but his old friend's efforts had been…less than successful. Malcador could not help but cast a glance at the pile of golden crystals lying in the corner, some of them containing trace amounts of psychic energy, but nothing like the dreamstone on the table.
He would have to convince the Emperor to not start handing out dreamstones until they could be made without Isha. It would not be easy, Revelation was horribly impatient for an immortal, but surely he would see that they could not afford to make themselves reliant on the Eldar god-construct in yet another way.
Not when they already relied on her for so much.
But that was a discussion for later.
For now, Malcador squashed his reluctance and reached out to the dreamstone, his hand hesitating over it for just a moment before he grasped it.
Instantly, he felt a protective power settle around his soul, serene and soothing. The tumult of the Warp, the shrieks of daemons, always present at the edges of his shields was muffled completely, as if they were no longer there.
He refused to actually lower the shields, but the abrupt calm was as disconcerting as it was nostalgic. It was not that this kind of peace of mind was unfamiliar to him, for whenever he was in the Emperor's presence, there was a similar effect, the burning sun that was the Anathema repelling all daemons.
But Isha's dreamstone was different. The Emperor's presence was as heavy as it was protective, a flame which kept the darkness away but was still dangerous to get close to, even for Malcador.
The dreamstone's power was lighter and softer, a cloak to shield you from the storm rather than a flame to keep the predators away. It made him feel warm and comfortable, reminding him of his youth when he had been a simple mid-level bureaucrat in the Solar Republic, living an ordinary comfortable life. Memories of his family flooded his mind, of his mother reading him a story, of bouncing his grandchildren on his knee.
But Malcador refused to be lulled by the sense of comfort and security. He pushed against the dreamstone's power, testing it to see if it would break.
But the dreamstone proved resilient, the protection refusing to bend even in the face of dual assault from both daemons and Malcador, all assaults rolling off it as if they were nothing.
Brute force wasn't working, so Maclador withdrew his power, rubbing his chin with his free hand as he contemplated the dreamstone and the veil it had formed around him.
Perhaps another angle then.
He pulled on his darkest emotions and memories, of his time as a soldier in the Iron War, as a warlord on Terra during the Old Night, of all the innocents he had killed, of the cities he had sacked. He took the nihilism and selfishness that had consumed him during those long dark centuries and honed them into a thousand dark tendrils and bloody lances, hurling them at the shield conjured by the dreamstone in endless waves, searching for any possible weakness to tear it apart.
Here, the shield conjured by the dreamstone seemed to falter briefly, but only for a moment. The memories and emotions it had brought back receded, but the protection did not.
Most impressive.
Satisfied, Malcador withdrew his assault, letting the darkness dissipate back into his soul and placing the dreamstone back on the table. A part of him cried out at the loss of the sense of security and comfort, of the memories that had returned with such sharp clarity, but the rest of him saw a dangerous temptation, something to be avoided at all costs.
"Malcador?" The Emperor asked, a tinge of concern in his voice that would have been imperceptible to anyone who did not truly know him.
"I am fine," Malcador answered, turning to Isha, who was watching him with wary eyes. "I must congratulate you on your work, Lady Isha. The dreamstone indeed does everything you said it would do. It is a magnificent piece of work." One that would never find its way into the hands of any human psyker, if Malcador had anything to say about it.
Isha inclined her head in acceptance of the compliment. "Thank you, Lord Sigillite. I must admit, I was not expecting you to try to dismantle the dreamstone's defences yourself. "
"I had to," Malcador answered without shame. "Part of it was that I was just curious, I admit, but many beings will seek to shatter these objects. Testing their endurance here, in a controlled environment, is best."
"Indeed." Isha agreed though the furrow in her eyebrow suggested she suspected that Malcador wasn't telling the truth. Fortunately, she did not push the matter, simply leaning back in her chair and observing him.
Malcador returned her gaze with a smile. Isha was one of the most dangerous beings he had ever met, perhaps the most dangerous save the Emperor himself. But she was also tolerant and kind in ways that most beings of her level were not.
And he could use that. He could never let himself forget the ways in which she surpassed him, but he could still at least predict her.
"Now that we have tested the dreamstone, I believe we should move on to the navigation techniques." The Emperor cut in. "Isha, observe carefully. Malcador, if you could demonstrate?"
"Yes, of course." Malcador agreed.
He sat on one of the chairs, aware of Isha's piercing gaze on both sides of reality. What, he mused, did a living weapon forged for the war that had broken reality see when it looked at him?
A dark, morbid part of him wanted to know what judgement she would level on him. The rest of him resented that she, goddess of the accursed Eldar, felt she had any right to judge him at all.
Putting the thought aside for the moment, Malcador focused on the task at hand.
The Warp was a sea of eternal darkness, and Malcador's will was a burning ray of light, cutting through it and chasing the daemons away. Utterly insignificant compared to what the Emperor could do, but it was rooted in the same basic principles, and Malcador had long learned how to compensate for his lack of power relative to the Anathema.
It was not easy. Not from here, with the Emperor and Isha standing next to him, and it would have been even more difficult from an actual spaceship.
But he knew how to do it, and so, slowly, painfully, Malcador ignored the whispers of a thousand thousand daemons and cast a light on the roiling waves of the Warp, locating a route that would lead a ship straight from Terra to Mars, which appeared in the Warp as an orb of pure iron and industry, wreathed in crimson smoke from a million different foundries and forges.
It seemed to take an eternity, though Malcador was distantly aware that not even a full minute had passed in the Materium. It would have been all too easy to lose all sense of time entirely, and plunge into the Sea of Souls forever, but Malcador was a practised hand at this. While he had not left Sol since before the Age of Strife, he had travelled everywhere within it in those long millennia before the Emperor had returned.
And the Warp had been far more tumultuous, then, as Slaanesh still writhed and grew, and there was no light, only darkness.
Now, it was much easier, with the Warp at least somewhat calmer, the Emperor's light so close by…and Isha's as well, Malcador admitted to himself reluctantly.
Speaking of Isha, Malcador could feel her gaze fixed upon him and the route he had charted. Usually, in the Immaterium, she appeared as a tree, but right now, her presence felt more akin to a dragon-, no, a winged serpent from Terran legends of old. Except not quite, almost human yet subtly different.
The serpent circled him, then followed the route he had illuminated, before giving him a brisk nod, apparently satisfied.
Malcador drew back from the Warp, re-centring himself in the Materium. In her chair, Isha looked thoughtful, tapping her chin with one finger.
"That was very well done, Lord Malcador," Isha praised. "Even my daughter's finest acolytes would have been impressed by what you did here."
Malcador nodded. It was no small compliment, and even coming from an Eldar, the prideful part of him could not help but be pleased by it.
"But I see what the Emperor means when he says that it is not replicable." Isha shook her head. "This method of divination is incredible, but it also relies heavily on power. Nothing less than an…Alpha-Class psyker in your terms could learn it, and since more power attracts more attention from daemons, they would also have to be incredibly strong-willed. Teaching this on a larger scale is impossible."
"What do you suggest, then?" The Emperor asked, crossing his arms.
"Dreamstones will be critical, I believe," Isha said, rubbing her chin in deep thought. "Beyond that, I will teach you the basic techniques for psychic control and shielding that my children used, and from there, I believe we can synthesize what we know to create something useable by human psykers. As I said before, this is not going to be an easy road. But I am confident we can do it, even if it takes several years."
"We will need to test the techniques with ordinary psykers, however." The Emperor mused. "But at the same time, it would need to be someone strong and stable, with both talent and discipline."
"The Ahriman twins from the Fifteenth Legion, perhaps?" Malcador suggested. "They are far rawer and moldable than I, but they possess a greater strength of will and more power than any of the Battle Psykers. They seem a fine place to start."
Isha and the Emperor exchanged a thoughtful glance, and something in Malcador's stomach churned at the sight. "I think that would be a good idea," Isha said slowly. "We will need to work our way down to unaugmented humans eventually, but for the first candidates, two Space Marines would indeed do very well."
The Emperor nodded in agreement. "Yes, I agree. A splendid idea, Malcador."
"Thank you, my lord," Malcador answered, even as his mind whirled.
"In any case, we are getting ahead of ourselves. We need to create a syllabus and lessons first before they can be taught to any students." Isha said. "Tomorrow, Your Majesty?"
"Yes, tomorrow." The Emperor said. "I must attend to my other work today." And though no one else would have caught the trace of disappointment in his voice, both Malcador and Isha did. What Isha made of it, Malcador could not say, but Malcador was reminded that at heart, his old friend was a scientist and researcher, who disliked having to put off learning something new.
And Isha was a treasure trove of new knowledge indeed.
"Progress is going very well." The Emperor said a rare look of genuine pleasure on his face as he reclined in the chair of his study, a pen floating in front of him as it signed one paper after another, each sheet floating over to settle on the complete pile once done.
"Horus is responding better to me and seems to have taken to the lessons I assigned with voracious hunger. His thirst for knowledge is great, especially in matters of warfare. And once this project with Isha is complete, we will not need to rely on the Navigator Clans. Valdor's reports from the Pan-Pacific Empire are promising as well, he should be done within the next two years, though perhaps I should relieve him sooner than that. But once the Pan-Pacific is dealt with, all that stands in the way of unity is the Ethnarchy."
Malcador said nothing, contemplating how best to frame his concerns.
"At this rate, we should capture Luna within five to seven years." The Emperor continued. "And then we can move on to the rest of Sol. We should start drawing up plans for the treaty with Mars, best to have several versions on hand before we approach them."
"Yes," Malcador said, sighing slightly. "I will begin work on it soon."
Finally, the Emperor seemed to take notice of his mood. "Does something trouble you, my friend?" The Emperor asked after a moment, the smile fading from his face.
"I can't help but wonder," Malcador murmured. "If in seeking to avoid reliance on factions such as the Navigator Clans, we have become too reliant on Isha."
The Emperor leaned back, the floating pen and papers pausing in mid-air for the briefest of moments. "It is not permanent. We have plans to become self-sufficient eventually."
"Eventually, yes." Malcador acknowledged. "But even then, we will be working with inferior replacements. The Lunar gene labs are no replacement for Isha herself, for example. She is critical to us, entrenched and almost irreplaceable. Even once we have other options, it would be foolish and counterproductive to not use her services. And without Isha, we would not have stabilized the Thunder Warriors either. We would have to rely on the Space Marines despite their flaws. Assuming Astarte had even been able to identify those flaws in the first place without what she has learned from Isha's work."
"Yes," The Emperor acknowledged. "I know all this. What is your point?"
"My point, Revelation, is that I believe we should avoid becoming more reliant on her than we already are," Malcador said softly. "These dreamstones are a good idea. But until you can make them, I do not believe we should distribute any to the psykers who serve us."
The Emperor frowned, leaning forward to examine Malcador more closely. "This has been concerning you for a while, hasn't it?"
"It has," Malcador admitted. "I know that speed is paramount for our plans, for the Imperium-" And the Imperium truly was the only way to save humanity. Malcador believed that wholeheartedly. "But I fear that we are making mistakes in our haste, ones which could be avoided if we slowed down somewhat."
The Emperor regarded him silently, and for a moment, Malcador wondered whether he was about to be rebuked.
"Malcador," He said finally. "I understand your fears. Truly. But as you told me some time ago, I should take advantage of Isha's soft heart. I have done that, but I promise I have not forgotten who or what she is. We need her help, but I will never forget that."
"I know," Malcador murmured with a sigh. "And yet…what will we do with her afterwards, Revelation?"
"Afterwards?" The Emperor said, arching a brow.
"Yes. Isha has made it clear she does not wish to stay with us forever. She requires your protection from the Four, and that gives us leverage over her, but it is obvious she does wish to return to the Eldar, to help them. And if she does…she could easily be our most dangerous rival."
The Emperor frowned. "I believe we can extend Isha some benefit of the doubt. She is not so foolish as to leave my protection without some other kind of assurance to keep her safe from the Four, and while she does wish to help the Eldar, I do not believe she will do so in such a way that endangers her agreement with me."
What the Emperor said was true. It was logical and made perfect sense with all the data they had available. Yet, they were also words that Malcador would not have expected to hear from his mouth twenty years ago.
How many times had he wished for the Emperor to be more patient, more measured? To not choose a solution based purely on expediency?
Well, no. In a sense, the Emperor was still doing that. If his old friend was not still driven by an overwhelming sense of urgency, Isha would still be confined to her chambers, permitted to do only the bare minimum.
But the Emperor had remembered the value of wrapping his iron fist in a silk glove, of handling things with a scalpel instead of a hammer.
Malcador had wanted this for a long time. He truly believed in the Emperor and his vision. He was not sure if it was achievable, but it was a beautiful dream of humanity ascendant over the stars, one worth fighting and dying for.
If nothing else, it was the only viable path forward, and now that the Emperor had reclaimed some of his lost patience, the Imperium's foundations would be that much more stable.
And yet, Malcador could not help but feel that they had let Isha shape their plans, their dreams and their empire in a way they had never intended.