New chapter. As always, the next two chapters are 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)
"Would this variation work?"
"No, no, that would make the psyker too perceptive of the Warp, the risk of going mad is too high…"
Isha frowned at the disorganized mess of papers and dataslates on the Emperor's desk, snatching a fresh slate to begin typing.
"Perhaps if we adjust this here…" She suggested, showing him a modification to the technique.
The Emperor gave it a ferocious scowl, though she knew he wasn't displeased with her, merely with their slow progress. "Possibly. But it would need to be tested first, and none of the recruits are ready yet. Not even the Astartes."
Isha sighed wearily. "It can be tested when they are ready, then. It is not as if we have anyone else. Malcador's tests can never fully reflect the experience of those so much younger than him."
The Emperor's scowl deepened even further. "Wonderful." He muttered sourly.
Isha shrugged helplessly, wandering over to the window to look at Bai-heng for a moment. The city was abuzz with activity and light even though night had long since fallen. Millions upon millions of souls burned like sparks, beautiful but so frustratingly fragile.
Turning back to the Emperor, she spoke. "If you have doubts about the ability of your psykers to deal with the perils of the Immaterium, perhaps Thunder Warriors would be a better choice for psychic navigators than Space Marines? Given their in-built resistance to the Warp."
The Emperor rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Perhaps. But I am not entirely sure how well the Thunder Warrior enhancements mesh with psychic genes. None among them have ever awoken as psykers, nor have I ever tested the process on those who were already psykers themselves."
"Their resistance is rooted in warpcraft itself." Isha pointed out. It was an ingenious piece of work on the Emperor's part, the Thunder Warriors drawing strength from the Sea of Souls, but only in a purely defensive way, bolstering their resistance to psychic assaults, whether in manifested directly in the materium or striking directly at the mind.
In a way, it reminded her of the Krork and how their War Field had been designed to help them resist an assault by the power of the Yngir.
"It might need to be modified, perhaps so that they can consciously control it, but they already wield the powers of the Aethyr." Isha reasoned, thinking of Gorkamorka and how he had fought the C'tan.
It still hurt to remember her friend, lost to madness and broken in half, but he had been the single greatest soldier the Old Ones had ever created, and that example was useful, here and now.
Both in how to emulate him, and to avoid the mistakes that had driven him mad.
("Gorkamorka, please stop, the war is over, we can be at peace-"
"We do not need or want peace. We were made for war. We are war."
"Gorkamorka, please, that's not true. You know it's not. This madness isn't you. If we ever were truly friends-"
"Hahahaha! We shall always be friends. But as our friendship was forged in war, so it shall forever be strengthened by it! You may have forgotten, but in the end, you are war as well. Come, let me remind you...)
"True enough," The Emperor conceded. "I will consider it, and check if any among the Thunder Warriors have any dormant psychic potential. However, that still leaves the problem of our navigation techniques being unusable for anyone who doesn't have warp resistance."
"Yes, there is that," Isha sighed, pushing away thoughts of Gorkamorka. "I must admit, crafting a method for mortal psykers to navigate the Warp would be easier if I could speak directly to my children. They would simply have a better understanding of what to do than I do."
The Emperor's eyes flickered at the mention of her wanting to speak to her children, but he didn't seem troubled by it. "Yes, Eldar psychic disciplines are most impressive. The basic techniques you have shared are in themselves useful, but…" He shook his head. "Not nearly enough."
Isha grimaced. She was well-versed in the biomancy techniques of her children, having crafted most of them herself. Translating those for humanity would have been easier than divination, but that was not what the Emperor wanted or needed. "We do have a viable set of techniques for reading the ebb and flow of the Warp now if nothing else." Isha pointed out. "We merely need to…simplify it."
"But can we afford to?" The Emperor asked. "It is incredibly complex and difficult, yes, but I fear reducing the complexity would only make it more dangerous."
Isha pursed her lips. The navigation techniques they had crafted were so difficult to master that she doubted the ability of even the Ahriman twins to master them. And they were the most gifted psykers in the Imperium outside of Malcador.
But human souls and minds were delicate, and simplifying the techniques might indeed put them at risk.
Once more, Isha wished for her children. For the mortal ones, for Lileath. Even Asuryan or Morai-Heg's advice would have been helpful.
But then, if Lileath, Asuryan or Morai-Heg were alive, Isha doubted she would be here on Terra.
"How is the progress of the psykers you have trained so far going?" Isha asked, changing the subject. "My knowledge has been more helpful there, I hope?"
"Oh, yes." The Emperor said, his mood seeming to improve ever so slightly. "There have been no complications so far, and all the mortal psykers report that their minds are calmer these days. Those techniques of yours have allowed them to build stronger mental shields, and find a peace of mind most of them had forgotten."
At least there was that much, Isha thought, pleased by his words. The Emperor's original curriculum for his psykers and preparing them for the dangers of the Warp had not been…ineffective, but it had been crude, to say the least. Outright brutal, even. She had persuaded him to try to use some of her children's techniques instead, at least as an experiment, and she was glad it had been successful.
"The progress of the Ahriman twins, in particular, has been exceptional, I may give them some further tutoring in the future," the Emperor continued.
"That is good to hear. They have not given you any problems at all?" Isha inquired.
"They are admittedly somewhat overeager and much too curious about the mysteries of the Warp," The Emperor said, his gaze becoming distant for a moment. "Their hunger to learn is strong. But they know better than to disobey me."
"Indeed."
"I have also been working on building an oversight force," The Emperor said, clasping his hands together. "An organization that will supervise psykers, and where necessary, police them."
"A good idea, Your Majesty," Isha nodded, hiding the stirrings of unease that his words had conjured. It was a good idea, in theory, but she suspected she wasn't going to enjoy his execution of it. "Is there anything you need my help with, concerning this oversight force?"
"Merely a second glance at the basic procedures I have crafted. They are harsh and necessarily so, but I would rather not have them be excessively cruel." The Emperor said, offering Isha a dataslate.
"I see," Isha flicked through the dataslate's files. The rituals and rites the Emperor had outlined were…difficult, but Isha had to admit that they would be effective. Anyone who successfully survived them would not be immune to Chaos, but they would be as close as any mortal could possibly get.
But it was brutal. The methods bore many similarities to the indoctrination that Space Marines went through, but it was even harsher, the indoctrination even more thorough.
(It reminded her of the same indoctrination she had put her children through, during the War in Heaven, at the bidding of the Old Ones.)
"Is this truly necessary, Your Majesty?" Isha asked, raising her gaze from the dataslate. "Dreamstones can provide protection as effective as this. Of course, that is not to say that your psykers should not be well-trained and disciplined, but if only you would give my dreamstones-"
"No." The Emperor said, his voice taking on a sharp edge. "Human psykers shall carry my dreamstones, or they shall carry none. That aside, I require my oversight force to be incorruptible even without the protection of a dreamstone. I will be using this process, even if you refuse to help me."
Isha bowed her head. "Very well," She said reluctantly. "Please give me some time."
The Emperor nodded curtly, and Isha went through the files again, this time making notes on how to refine and soften the process. She could not make it kind, she could not even guarantee the survival of all those who went through this.
But she could remove the unnecessary edges, at least, even if shame and bitterness burned at her.
Several minutes later, she offered the dataslate to the Emperor. "Here, Your Majesty."
"Thank you, Isha." The Emperor nodded, the sharpness gone from his voice as if it had never been there. "Your aid is much appreciated."
Isha accepted his words silently, even as she felt a wave of weariness fall over her.
Just be patient, she told herself. She was making progress with the Emperor, in gaining his trust and laying the foundations for a true alliance.
It would take time, but there was hope.
"That aside," The Emperor began, drawing his attention back to her. "I also had another idea concerning the dreamstones."
"Oh?" Isha arched an eyebrow, the gleam in the Emperor's eyes telling her he had been mulling this over for some time.
"I have been thinking that perhaps we are approaching this from the wrong perspective," The Emperor said. "If we cannot create navigation techniques that can be taught to psykers, perhaps we can create a navigation device they can use."
"Hmm," Isha pondered the idea for a moment. "It is worth exploring certainly." She wasn't Vaul, who could have devised such an artefact in mere moments, so it would likely be just as difficult as crafting the divination techniques. But unlike those techniques, it might be something that mortals could use.
A tool to help them do what they could not do on their own. Yes…it could work.
"The dreamstone would have to be part of it, of course," The Emperor mused. "Beyond that, we'll have to work on it."
"Of course," She said delicately. "We can do nothing of this until you can create a dreamstone."
The Emperor's efforts to make dreamstones had improved substantially in a short time, but there was still something missing in them. Something that made them unable to provide genuine protection to those who bore them.
The Emperor's scowl returned with a vengeance, but he didn't object to her words. "I am trying," He said, his tone sullen. "It is not easy."
"It is not," Isha acknowledged. The dreamstones had been a product of Vaul working with her, and creating and refining them had taken some time even between the two of them.
The thought of her brother still filled her with guilt and sorrow. If only she had done more to free him from Khaine's clutches, he might have lived. The Fall might never have occurred. Vaul had been the cleverest of them all, and given time, he could very well have devised a solution that had not occurred to the rest of them.
If nothing else, he might have been able to find a way for more of them to survive. He could probably have come up with some clever trick to flee into the Webway, could have crafted any number of tools and weapons to compensate for their lost strength.
Together, surely, they could have done more to protect and save the Eldar. To save the galaxy.
But Vaul was not here, she reminded herself, pulling herself back to the present. She was, and she had to live with the consequences of her desperate gamble.
"Your Majesty, perhaps trying to forge a dreamstone while keeping a specific memory in mind would help. A time in your life when you felt truly safe and happy, that could be used as the foundation of your dreamstone."
The Emperor scowled but seemed to seriously consider her words. Isha had known from the instant she had suggested it that getting the Emperor to forge dreamstones would be a difficult process. He was cold and closed off, and had developed a habit of actively suppressing his better impulses and more positive emotions.
But if he could reach the mindset needed to forge dreamstones, it would be an enormous boon to him and possibly to her as well. If she could convince him that kindness could be a strength, not a weakness…
It was a dangerous gamble. If he thought she was manipulating him, then it could ruin their agreement entirely. And in a way, she was manipulating him, Isha acknowledged.
Not to mention that she had essentially given up the secret of wraithbone to him. Not the exact process, but the basic principles in crafting dreamstones were the same, and the Emperor was intelligent enough to work it out on his own now that he had a foundation to work on.
But if it worked, she might be able to genuinely trust him as an ally, not merely to behave in certain ways she could predict.
If it worked.
"I will take your advice into consideration," The Emperor said finally. "I will make another attempt tomorrow."
Admittedly, it would help if the Emperor was willing to let her guide him more directly, but he was clearly reluctant to expose his heart to her, preferring to work on his dreamstones mostly in private.
But at least he was working on it, so Isha simply nodded and returned to the subject at hand.
"Concerning the navigation device, did humans not have machines for navigating the Warp, before the Age of Strife?" Isha asked. "I realize that the rise of Chaos makes the usage of the devices in their original form impossible, but perhaps there is something that we could repurpose for building a device around the dreamstone instead."
The Emperor frowned slightly, but it was more thoughtful than anything. "I think there might be, yes. I would need to redesign them heavily, however. Those navigation machines were meant to have AI operating them."
That reminded Isha of something that had been nagging at her for a while now. Now was perhaps not the best time to ask about it, but there was never a 'best' time to ask the Emperor any real questions.
"Your Majesty, I must confess I do not understand your aversion to Artificial Intelligence. They are a risk, yes, but their mere existence does not condemn them to be corrupted by Chaos. You presented me with those AI some years ago, and I saw the automata used by the…Mechanicum on Cthonia," The mere memory of those slavers was a bitter one. "And there are ways to build safeguards, though I am admittedly unfamiliar with them."
A mixture of surprise and annoyance flashed across the Emperor's face at her audacity. "I have my reasons," He said coolly. "There are more risks to creating and trusting AI than you are aware of."
"But what are those risks?" Isha pressed. "I simply wish to understand. Was the Cybernetic Revolt truly so terrible? Did…did the Men of Iron give in to Chaos of their own free will?"
The Emperor sighed, but he did not seem angry, but rather…pained. "Is it truly necessary for you to know?"
Isha paused, and took a long, hard look at the Emperor. He truly did seem uncomfortable and sorrowful at the subject.
And did she need to know?
…no, no, she didn't.
"My apologies, Your Majesty. I will not press on this any further." She was still curious, but for all his other annoying qualities, the Emperor had done her the basic courtesy of not interrogating her too deeply about the downfall of her children or the War in Heaven, she could at least reciprocate.
"It is fine," The Emperor waved it off. "Now, I believe we are done for the day and I have some other matters to attend to."
Isha accepted the implied dismissal, and with a shallow bow of her head, left.
The Emperor leaned back in his chair as Isha left the room, uncertainty gnawing at him.
A part of him had wanted to answer her questions, to tell her the full truth about the Cybernetic Revolt, to explain his decisions to her in full.
He had refrained, but why had the thought crossed his mind at all?
…he knew why he acknowledged to himself. He just didn't want to admit it.
He hadn't just wanted her to obey, he had wanted her to understand. To agree with him, and sympathize.
Isha was cooperative and in the end, that was all that mattered, he told himself sternly. He did not need her to agree with him wholeheartedly, and it would be foolish to expect her to do so even if he told her everything.
Feeling Malcador approach his study, the Emperor shoved thoughts of Isha aside for the moment. He could worry about her later.
Moments later, the last of his true companions and disciples entered the room, another dataslate in hand.
Part of him was always proud to see how far Malcador had come since the young man that the Emperor had first met, barely a century old and struggling with his newly awakened psychic powers. Another part of him was grieved, because he knew Malcador had been far happier as an ordinary bureaucrat, doting on an army of children and grandchildren.
But that simple man, content to live a quiet life was long gone, not least because of the Emperor's lessons.
"Revelation," The Sigillite greeted, striding over to his table and placing the dataslate down on the table. "I have bad news from Valdor, I'm afraid."
"Oh?" The Emperor asked, pulling his mind back to the present.
"The remaining Chaos cults are proving increasingly difficult to root out, and have begun resurging even in the territories we had previously thought pacified. The remnants of the Empire's aristocracy continue to be a nuisance, and some of the splinter states have flocked to the Ethnarchy's banner rather than ours."
The Emperor scowled, going through Valdor's reports on the dataslate. "I suppose I should not have expected things to be simple." He had been away too long from the front in any case. The new training program for psykers and Horus had both taken up much of his attention.
The last time he had spent this much time in Bai-heng without interruption had been Isha's earliest days on Terra when he had been uncertain of the extent of her capabilities and whether or not she could circumvent his wards.
Valdor was still doing an admirable job, as expected of his Captain-General, but it was becoming obvious that permanently rooting out the influence of Chaos was a matter he would have to tend to personally.
"I will deal with matters personally once I have made some progress with the Dreamstones," The Emperor decided. "I will make a trip to the Ethnarchy as well, to ensure Chaos has not sunk its talons into it, but then, I will go take command from Valdor."
"Understood," Malcador said. "But what of Horus?"
"I will speak to him, try to make him understand properly," The Emperor. "Perhaps…bring him with me to the front. He has been doing well enough in his lessons so far."
Malcador hummed thoughtfully. "Are you sure that is wise, Revelation? The boy is still a boy, for all that he does not look it. Exposing him to war so early might damage his mental stability. Cthonia was highly dangerous in its own way, but it wasn't like what we have been dealing with."
"True," The Emperor admitted with a sigh. As always, Malcador's more grounded perspective let him remember the smaller details the Emperor forgot.
There would always be a distance between them, in the end, but that distance was useful in its way.
"Perhaps I will bring Horus with me, but keep his exposure to the fight limited," The Emperor said eventually. "Or something else to make it up to him that I have to leave again. I'll have to consider the matter."
"Some sort of excursion with just the two of you, perhaps?" Malcador suggested. "Not necessarily anywhere dangerous, or even outside of the fortress. Just something the two of you can do together, that would make the boy feel special and solidify his loyalty to you further."
"A good idea," The Emperor agreed, mulling it over. "I think I have a few ideas. But tell me, what of the boy's companions? How is their education progressing?"
Malcador shrugged. "It goes well enough. The boy has an eye for talent, I must say. Most of them will be useful to the Imperium in time if they can find the drive and discipline."
"Good. Are there any candidates for the Thunder Warriors among them?"
"Some," Malcador replied. "Not many, but we expected that."
"Yes," The Emperor briefly toyed with the idea of fast-tracking some of his son's companions through training programs for the Thunder Warriors, so that they could be inducted immediately once they were eighteen, but discarded it after a moment. If they resumed production of Space Marines, Horus would likely want his friends for the Sixteenth Legion.
He had to meet with his son for dinner soon, but there was one more thing.
The Emperor retrieved a dataslate from his desk and handed it to Malcador. "Here, Isha's refinements for the project."
Malcador frowned slightly as he took the slate. "Does Isha suspect?"
"No. I told her I am constructing an oversight force, and she believed me."
It was the truth, granted. Just not the whole truth.
Malcador's frown faded. "I'll add this to the database, then."
It was a shame, the Emperor thought. Isha's help truly would have been useful with this project as well.
But he needed more soldiers who were independent of her influence and design.
And since the Space Marines created with the geneseed from his sons could not be fully relied upon, it seemed best to make more with his own.