"Sebastian!" a faraway voice cried in a dream as the lost Traveler sat at his desk, meditating on what to write next in his novel.
Sebastian opened his eyes, briefly concerned. He had experienced another odd intrusive vision of the American woman with white streaked hair. While having visions of random people was somewhat normal for him, a persistent vision was cause for concern, so he decided to think on it.
He spent much time in meditation in this space. He did that a lot. It was all he could do, or, at least the remnant of him that still called himself Sebastian could do. He had consciously retained that part of his identity in a secret corner of his vast mind, a mind that now served as his prison.
Over millennia, the lost Traveler's mind had fractured like crystal, scattering into many disparate personalities. Each took on a fraction of his great burden. Through time, he was almost becoming a egregore of humanity trapped between life and death, and the horror of it surprised this particular personality with every second that passed. He did the best he could at defending the last remnants of humanity from destruction, keeping their little candles glowing for as long as he could against the dying of the light. After all the mistakes he had made, it was the least he could do for them.
He did have an escape, though. He had kept the "Sebastian" personality alive specifically to soothe himself, and to keep the baying dogs of insanity away from the rest of him. A mind as broad as his could reconstruct an illusory reality within himself for comfort and serenity. No one had to know where he went for respite, and no one ever did.
Sebastian had recreated his flat in Bristol, England deep inside the many rooms of his mind. There, it was eternally 1997, and there, he sat writing his stories as he used to, and experiencing the same day, over and over and over, for thousands of years. It was a small meditative comfort, and it was where a part of him could go to experience peace.
The lost Traveler didn't have to worry about the fires outside, or the daemons pressing on the gate. No. Or the fact that he was in a cursed state of undeath forever, always suffering, never truly dying. No, not at all. Here, he had his old computer room, and it was always a comforting rainy day in October. There was a little variation in each day to keep things interesting. Some days, he got a pizza after a tabletop game at the local game shop, and other days, he took long walks, listening to simulated people talk about their simulated lives. He didn't want his little pocket of heaven to feel too much like Groundhog Day, of course. To Sebastian, each day played out as a perfect slice of a typical day in the life he left behind, so many thousands of years ago. In here, things were okay, and that was fine.
In the living room, a representation of his flatmate Aaron sat on the sofa, flipping the channels on the television. Sebastian often wondered how the real Aaron had lived his life, whether if he had kids or made something of himself. He was long dead somewhere in another universe, but here, the mental construct that was Aaron lived each eternal day, happy and blissfully lazy as he watched old television reruns. And Sebastian liked him for that. Normalcy made him happy.
"Hey, can you keep it down in there?" Sebastian called out from his computer room. Aaron was watching sitcoms, and it was a little too loud.
"Sorry mate. Volume's busted again," Aaron responded. "Are you alright in there? How's the book going?"
"Oh, its going," Sebastian replied. "Going nowhere fast. I was thinking about going to the game shop later if you'd like to join me."
"Nah, but hey," Aaron said. Sebastian could hear the sound of his metalhead flatmate standing up from the creaky sofa. "I bought a six pack earlier, and there's some old shows on right now. Why don't you stop being so depressed and stop lurking in your bedroom like a goblin? Lets see what hijinks these American teens get into, mate!"
The lost Traveler laughed. He had been called a "goblin" 1,148,861 times by his old flatmate since he had started coming here. Back outside, they called him a god, or a corpse. The thought that he was now somehow both drifted through him once again, and quickly, it was drowned. Being called a goblin was silly, and it brightened his mood. This piece of him could appreciate irreverent humor. "Alright Aaron," Sebastian replied, leaning back in his computer chair. "What did you get this time? I swear, if I have to drink Coors Lite again, I'll scream."
Aaron appeared in the open doorway of his bedroom, smiling. "You'll never let me live that down," he laughed. Aaron was wearing black jeans, and a short Iron Maiden T-shirt which revealed his many sleeve tattoos. His long hair was dyed black and he was very pale. A part of him was reminded of his creation Corvus Corax, which was also pale and dark. An image of a raging raven-like bipedal raven creature screamed fury briefly in his Sight, causing Sebastian's eye to twitch.
"No, I don't think I'll ever forget," the lost Traveler responded, now involuntarily seeing in his mind's eye the wreckage of Sanguinius' body, bloodied on the floor of the Vengeful Spirit. Sebastian closed his eyes, and asked, "What did you get, then?"
"Uh, this stuff from America. Fancy. Called Rolling Rock."
"If they named it after a rock, it can't all be that good, Aaron," Sebastian quipped. Think happy thoughts.
"Oh come on. It's beer. No one cares how beer tastes!" his flatmate protested, leaning against the door frame. The metalhead pursed his lips, his eyes searching. "Oh, right. I forgot. When you were out, some lady came by and dropped something off for you. Said it was important."
"Some lady?" Sebastian asked. Huh. He had this simulation set to somewhat randomize, but this was entirely new. Never once in the millions of hours he had spent here did a strange woman drop off a present for him. It was a somewhat unwelcome surprise in his simulation, possibly calculated in his mind to keep him on his toes.
"Yeah. Hold on. I'll get it," Aaron said, turning around and leaving the entryway.
A sense of preternatural dread filled him, and he sucked in deep breath of air between clenched teeth. Very far away, Sebastian felt a twelve year old psyker expire to dust as he was drained to nothing by his touch. One day, that would be him. And he was secretly looking forward to it. No one had to know about that yearning either. No. Be positive. Don't dwell on negativity.
Right before he had been whisked away from his old life, he had met a very beautiful blonde woman at his local pub. They had talked for awhile, and she had offered him some very fancy whiskey. Sebastian remembered blushing, and stumbling over his words at the vivacious stranger. Her features and the words she said were almost hypnotic, and he always remembered her strange gold eyes. She was like something out of a dream. Sebastian had taken a drink of her offered whiskey, and that was the last thing he had remembered before waking up in what he now knew as the Warp, talking to what he now knew as Tzeentch, the Chaos God of Fate.
It appeared that she actually was out of a dream, because she (or it, rather) was just as he had written her in temperament. In the novel he had been writing, he had expanded on the existing lore of Warhammer Fantasy's Tzeentch, and made this one even more capricious, almost like a conniving divine trickster figure. An eternal "gamer" who played with the fates of sentient beings like an oversized sadistic child over an anthill. He had changed the god's name to "Thence" in his rough draft though, thinking that would be a better name for an eldritch entity with domain over fate and time.
He really should've gone home when he had the chance. He shouldn't have let them keep him here, the intrusive thought surfaced again.
What he had been through gave him shivers to this day when he reminisced about it. This entire thing, the world he was in right now, the universe where he was a chained god-creature shackled to a throne, had been a creation, apparently of his. He had been writing a Dune-inspired novel called "The God-Emperor of Mankind: Warhammer 30k", and was hoping to submit it to Games Workshop. They had a neat fantasy universe, but Sebastian always dreamed of what it would look like as a space opera. After he had visited the Wizard of Molech for the last time (and stupidly opting not to go home), he had taken the knowledge he had gained in an attempt to develop a strong human empire that would survive the trials of this dangerous universe. He thought he could be a hero. He thought he could atone for what he had done on Nubua...
"Everything washes away, like tears in rain," Sebastian whispered, quoting Blade Runner as he forced himself to think about more pleasant things.
"Tears in rain? What? Mate, you alright? Seriously, you've been a bit off today," his simulated flatmate asked as he returned holding a small brown bag.
"No, no. I'm fine. Just... just thinking about things, that's all. You know me."
"Alright well, here," Aaron brandished a short bottle of amber liquid. "Pretty lady said it was a gift. A thank you for everything, she said."
It was a bottle of American whiskey. Sebastian looked up at Aaron, now suspicious.
"What?" Aaron said, slightly glitching as he stood watching Sebastian. "You don't-"
Aaron's body then seized, and once again, he beheld the smiling blonde woman he had seen represent Tzeentch many times. "-like it?"
Sebastian jolted awake from his computer chair. He had been dozing again, and Aaron stood in the doorway, wearing a concerned look on his face. "Woah, hey! You alright in here? How's the book going?"
"Aaron, did we have any visitors recently? A girl, maybe? Pretty? Blonde? Gold eyes? She drop anything off? A present?" Sebastian hurriedly asked, standing up. He realized that he was sweating.
"Mate, you feeling alright? You look like you've seen a ghost," Aaron replied. "No one's been here. If there had been a cute girl stopping by with presents, I would've told you."
"I..." the lost Traveler exhaled. Maybe this glitching simulation was a side effect of the ongoing degradation in the Golden Throne's systems interfacing with his suppressed anxieties, he wondered as he extended a tendril of thought up to where his remains sat. Sharp lashes of pain briefly raced through him as he made conscious contact with the rest of his withered body. He was definitely still there, and everything was working (although for how much longer, he did not know). He set a portion of himself to investigate what had happened, and then, brought his attention here back to himself. Sebastian willed himself to relax. "I... look, lets just go watch TV for a little bit, alright? I think I've been working too hard. I need to calm down."
"That's the spirit!" Aaron said as Sebastian relaxed, weakly smiling. "Here. I bought us some beers with some money my mum gave me. They're having a Saved by the Bell marathon, and I just love that fucking show. Come on, get a brew and join me, mate!"
"Okay," Sebastian said, still a touch unbalanced. Saved by the Bell, huh? Sounds irreverent enough. He didn't quite know how he had been able to consume so much information to replicate entire television shows that he had only seen a few times, but he wasn't complaining. He had absorbed countless souls over thousands of years, so some were bound to know things that he didn't, even from his original dimension.
A pack of six green beers stood waiting for them on the table when they walked in to the living room. Aaron removed a can and passed it to Sebastian as they both sat on the sofa. "Rolling Rock?" the lost Traveler observed, his heart sinking as he turned the can around in his hand.
"Yeah. Fancy stuff from America!" Aaron took his beer and cracked it open as Sebastian began to get suspicious again. "I mean, no one really cares what beer tastes like, but I still think it's fancy!"
Just the Golden Throne having problems again, that's it, Sebastian thought, swallowing his dread. A new episode was just beginning. The writer put his worries to bed, and decided to relax. The optimistic theme song began with a school bell ringing as he cracked open his beer.
"When you wake up in the morning
Don't you think of being boring
And don't think you'll ever make it out alive...
By the time you get my books and I give your soul a look
I'm at the corner just in time to see your fate fly by!
Just.. Don't... Fight..."
That... didn't sound right for a high school sitcom from the 90's, Sebastian wondered, taking a long drink of his beer. Before he could voice that suspicion, his flatmate nudged him.
"So, seriously, what's gotten into you lately, mate?" Aaron took a big sip of his beer as Sebastian's intuition crawled again, telling him that something was wrong. He now had a terrible sense of deja vu. He tried to ignore it. Just some mental feedback, that's all. Throne's failing, and I'm going crazy, that's all. Humanity is doomed. I failed it and I killed it. Haha.
"Nothing, just, I've been working really hard," Sebastian replied, taking a long drink of a simulated beer. Title cards of the various teenage actors of the program appeared, each smiling, perky, and pastel. The suspicious song started up again after a guitar rift.
"...ridin' low on his stare. He won't know that I'm there"
If I can tolerate the horror then I'll be alright!
Just.. Don't... Fight..."
Sebastian drank, forcing himself not to worry, and disregarding the unusual song lyrics.
"It's like you suddenly have the weight of the world on your shoulders, mate," Aaron observed with concern.
Just.. Don't... Fight..." the song repeated. Sebastian's ears began to ring. Everything is fine. It's alright.
"Look, I'm fine. Just tired, that's all. Don't know why I feel this way," the writer quickly turned to Aaron, irritated, but he had suddenly vanished in a puff of smoke.
Greatly alarmed, Sebastian turned back to the television just as a gold-eyed Zack Morris turned to him as if he could see him through the sitcom, and mouthed the rest of the theme song, "...Cause you're saved in my hell!" with a wicked grin that he knew all too well.
"No!" Sebastian shouted as he angrily stood up. The lost Traveler willed the simulation to cease. Instead of finding himself floating formlessly in the Warp, he stood in a very familiar blue labyrinth.
"Aww. What's the problem? Don't you like Americans?" an evil polyphonic voice echoed behind him, menacing and cruel. He knew who that was, and turned around, ready for trouble.
The writer watched as the blue labyrinth reconfigured itself around him, and he was now standing in an old early 1990's American high school classroom. It was right out of the television show he had just been watching. Neon pastels and geometric shapes decorated posters on the bluish walls. His powerful intuition informed him that he was not to let his guard down.
Tzeentch's infernal Crystal Labyrinth had many rooms, and took many forms, and the god itself had a real sick sense of humor. It appeared that Sebastian had now been transported inside the Saved by the Bell program on television, and as soon as he had that revelation, the classroom door opened.
His form was tall, blond, and youthful, wearing bright colors with acid washed jeans and white high top trainers. As always, he was smiling, and as always, his eyes were a sparkling feral gold. A round of applause as if from an invisible studio audience swelled around him as a daemonic doppelganger of Zack Morris strode happily into the room. "Oh!" Tzeentch said, as if surprised to see him. "What is this, a crossover episode? The Emperor and Tzeentch together in Saved by the Bell? What a wacky scenario! Or, wait, are you calling yourself 'Sebastian' here again? You have a lot of different fractured personalities now Anathema, what with you being a broken corpse for thousands of years."
"What do you want?" Sebastian asked, not amused. Out of all the Chaos Gods, he personally despised this one the most, as he took absolute joy in manipulation and scheming.
"Oh come on. You're no fun, no fun at all. I thought you'd appreciate all this! It came from your time period, anyway!" Tzeentch/Zack slid smoothly over a desktop, and sat down in the chair in a fluid motion. With a wave of his hand, he conjured an apple out of nowhere, and began to munch. The fruit began to quietly scream in pain as the entity chomped on it. "So, how are you? Things good? You still killing off entire planets for believing in God? I know you're a corpse now, but you've always been sort of an overachiever, so I guess good for you. How's the family? I'm hearing that Guilliman might wake up soon. Isn't that neat? Wait'll Fulgrim hears about that!" Just out of the corner of his Sight in the classroom, Sebastian saw what the Chaos God truly looked like as a grinning multicolored leviathan of constantly shifting tentacles, teeth, magic, and power. The deceptively boyish avatar grinned mischievously, knowing that he was being truly perceived. Sebastian was unfazed by this Chaotic display; all it was doing was trying his patience. The god sensed his irritation, and said, "Cranky today, Anathema? Fine, fine." Tzeentch snapped his fingers, and the classroom dissolved into an endless hall of blue mirrors, smoke, and multicolored mists. "Let's chat!"
"Don't play games," Sebastian glowered. "Why are you here? You want something."
"Telling me not to play games is like telling you not to commit genocide, pal. Honestly, you seriously aren't much fun anymore. Maybe this form would be more comfortable for you to behold? I know I'm not Slaanesh, but you certainly seemed to like it back on Nubua!" Immediately, Tzeentch's boyish form transfigured into "his" typical attractive female avatar. She had long blonde hair that fell in an animate watery cloud around her, and her gold eyes shimmered in the blue atmosphere. She wore a trim black suit on her lithe body, and her skin was pale and cold, like moonlight on snow. The god grinned widely, and rolled in a lazy backflip in the buoyant watery air before him. The entity dramatically swooned before him, smiling wickedly. "Darling, it has been too long. You want another kiss, or are you still angry about that primarch prank thing? Really think you should lighten up, sweetheart. We could have so much fun together!"
Sebastian knew that this entity would do whatever she could to get a rise out of him in order to manipulate him, so he closed himself off and refused to react, turning away from the daemon woman-thing.
"I refuse to play in your games, abomination. What purpose do you have in appearing here?" he asked, amplifying himself brightly against her. Her smile fell just a bit, and hissed in trillions of voices as she recoiled away from his radiance.
"Oh, come now. No need for that, Anathema! I'm here because I want to help!"
"Your intentions are poison. I will have no alignment with the likes of you. You only help yourself."
"Ah, but you do. You see, the don't call me the Architect of Fate for nothing. That term is inclusive of your fate too, as I'm sure you know. I'm so good that even you Travelers can be ensnared by me! But look. I'm not all that bad. I'm here to direct your attention to a little bit of a problem." The god pointed toward a section of blue crystal wall which transfigured into one of the kitchen windows of his simulated flat. "There's something going on out there. Check it out, sweet cheeks!"
Sebastian glared at the Chaos entity before him, and she smiled back with sharp teeth. Despite Tzeentch's sadistic evil, he could not sense deception in that request, so the lost Traveler walked to the window.
As he approached the window, a raging storm suddenly appeared outside. Grey storm clouds and angry thunder rolled over him. Outside, Bristol was a mess, and sheets of rain fell in a deluge on the simulated city.
Sebastian sensed Tzeentch floating to his side as he looked out the window, but the god made no move to harm him. "Bad weather in the matrix today, huh?" she observed. "Look. It gets worse." The god pointed outside.
"Help me!" a strangely familiar female voice called from below. Sebastian turned, looking down along the side of the building, and was actually surprised.
There was a woman clinging to an overhanging windowsill below him. Her white-streaked black hair was soaked with rain, and her knuckles were pale as she dangled helplessly. The simulation glitched, and instead of a bad rainstorm, Sebastian was looking out over a swirling white landscape dotted with falling black boulders. With another flicker, the simulation glitched again back to the stormy Bristol day.
"Sebastian! Help me!" She shouted. The strange woman looked upward, and her expression when she met his eyes was a mixture of both shock and wonder. Eyes of bright gold looked at him pleadingly. Eyes that looked just like his!
We are the same! a mutual thought electrified the two of them.
What?!
He forced his perception of time to slow down as he was stunned by the revelation. Was she real? He had seen her before in his visions, but he had thought that she was simply an error spat out by his simulation. Each time he had seen her, she had vanished too quickly for him to seriously study. He had thought her a flaw, an energetic misfire of a thought inside his mind brought on by the trauma of seeing the galaxy sicken even further.
The entire world around him ground to a halt, but most unusually, she didn't. She still grappled and struggled below him, even as the rain was frozen in the sky.
"Sebastian! Help!" The woman still looked up at him as she cried out, and she persisted! This... this... she was real, he felt now! She existed!
Another thought now raced through him as bright and as real as Sol itself. An old memory of an ancient place he had been thousands of years ago. On Nubua, the place of his terrible Malediction, he had seen a painting of himself on a ceiling mural in the chamber of the Heart of Worlds, and next to him, there had been a woman with white streaked hair! He had always retained that memory, and it had always been a mystery as to who she was. They had called her the Omega! This was another Inheritor!
Not stopping to think on this revelation, Sebastian's altruism won out, and he rallied his strength to prepare a metaphysical rescue. As his perception of time restarted, a rope appeared in the lost Traveler's hands, and he tossed it over the side of the window. Before she could grab it, the strange woman vanished in a smear of screaming red energy beyond his Sight. Sebastian was left holding an empty rope next to the amused Chaos entity beside him.
"What have you done?" he fumed at Tzeentch.
The god continued to giggle beside him. "What an unusual circumstance! You know, she and you have the same eyes, that same irritating gold aura. Who is she and from where did she come from, I wonder? So very rare, these gold auras," Tzeentch said next to him with mocking laughter.
"You did this. You did this!" Sebastian growled, his own gold radiance blazing, causing the god to shrink back from him. This meeting was now attracting gawkers, and he felt Khorne's eye draw to his anger, watching in dark interest at the confrontation.
His light caused the Chaos entity to begin to dissipate, becoming slightly translucent. "Heh.. now, now, Anathema. Calm yourself. The reason she vanished isn't because of me, but because she's beyond the Great Rift. Search your memories if you doubt me. Your old chicken ship has a special ability to call to itself, as you probably know, and since you pulled a lot of your strength from it, it called to you. Sounds like she's asking for help while in possession of that big psychic turkey, but you can't do anything to help her since you're a corpse stuck on a Throne on Terra!"
Sebastian brightened his presence in a rage, and lunged violently forward to strike at the entity that mocked him. His fist passed right through the god's face as if it were vapor, and she vanished into nothing. Far away, he could hear Khorne laughing at him.
Okay, I have to figure this out. I have to, he thought, calming down. I can fix this.
He dipped into his Sight again, questioning his memories and confirming what he had seen. What terrible power she must have to be mobile and sentient deep within his visions! Was she really something like him, a lost soul from another universe? That gold shine was very distinctive, and impossible for a Chaos power to duplicate. Was she actually an American? Was that why she spoke in that accent?
If she was a Traveler, this changed absolutely everything!
Sebastian now knew that plane walkers like himself could break and reform the bonds of fate by their very nature. If they were interfaced with the enigmatic machine spirit of the Divine Intervention, Travelers could magnify that fate-rending strength to near-deific levels. Because of that, it was no wonder Tzeentch was drawn to them. The ability of a live Traveler to rewrite destiny's pages was incredible, as fate would bend around them, almost like the actions of a self-insert in fiction! Almost like... himself, Sebastian admitted with a short cringe. The lost Traveler's mood rose again when he realized that mankind's grim future could be remade if he could find a way to get to her! Humanity now had hope, but he had to find her!
Desperately, he swam upwards through a stream of thought, passing the anchor that held him to the Golden Throne, and outward like a fish along the dying screams of the psykers sacrificed to him. He searched for who she was, where she was, and most importantly, what she was. He needed to confirm it. Was it true? Really?
His Sight skated along the light of the Astronomicon over currents of psychic heat, searching for where he had sensed her. He was stopped by a roiling gash of maddened and tortured Warpspace, and could go no further. Tzeentch was right. The woman was beyond the Great Rift, the scar of ruination that now cut across the galaxy. Laughing wicked spirits accosted him as he searched for any way to get through to her.
"Well, well, well. Ready to admit I told the truth?" the wicked polyphonic voice purred behind him again. Sebastian ignored Tzeentch as he continued looking for a way through the Rift. There had to be a gap somewhere! There had to be a weakness! He needed to get through! He sensed that the Chaos God was watching him with great amusement. "Hmm, now, where have I seen something like this before? Trapped behind a giant magical barrier, and needing desperately to get through to something. Looks terribly familiar to me, but I just can't place it!"
The entity floated up to him, her long blonde hair flowing behind her in the winds of the Warp. She wore an expression of bemused puzzlement, which shifted rapidly to wide-eyed exaggerated realization. "Ah, I remember now! One of your sons had this problem once! Which one was it? Oh, yes, I remember... Magnus! He's well by the way, thanks for asking. I'll tell him you said hi!"
"Not listening to you," Sebastian said, not taking the bait as he raced along the boundary of the rift. "You and I have nothing more to talk about."
"Oh, but we do, you know. I actually happen to know who you're looking for. I was just playing coy earlier. Nothing escapes my attention, Anathema. That woman you saw, the one with the gold eyes and the American accent. You're right. She's from another universe. She's got your pretty bird ship, Sebastian. And I'm sorry to say that she's stuck in your Malediction, trapped and unable to escape it. You know, this is more your fault than mine, since you're the one who cursed that entire region."
The churning barrier was long and immovable, and his anger was beginning to rise from Tzeentch's mockery. Once again, the spectacle of what was happening was attracting attention from other Chaos powers. Khorne leaned forward again on his Skull Throne, drawn to Sebastian's brewing rage.
"Like I said, I don't have anything to say to you," the lost Traveler replied, prodding the rift with a gout of light from his ethereal hands. A sudden flash of intuition from his Sight confirmed it now. The Chaos God had told the truth again. He sensed that she was somehow languishing in the Broken Desert of Nubua. He couldn't believe it. Another Traveler! He prayed that it was true!
Was Tzeentch responsible for this one too? Did he feed her cursed whiskey at a pub somewhere in America? Sebastian paused his search, and turned to the Chaos God, who smiled innocently at him.
"What is your goal here? Spit it out."
"Look, I'm not here to cause trouble, 'Bastian. Can I call you that? Bastian? Like that little boy in the Neverending Story who got everything he wanted when his inner world became his outer world, and he became trapped in his own neverending story? You know, in the book, whenever Bastian made a wish, he lost a memory from his past. I do wonder if that's the same with you, Anathema?"
"I don't have time to listen to your taunting. If that's all you're up to, you should leave."
"No, no. Why would I do that? If I leave, the galaxy loses hope. I represent hope, after all. You even wrote me this way here, and so did she! I don't know if you've used those interdimensional mind powers you possess to read any of the lore books about this reality, but I'm not just the god of scheming and Warp fuckery. I'm also hope, change, all that fun stuff. I'm here to help, Bastian!"
"What. Do. You. Want?" Sebastian growled impatiently.
"Oh, what I want is to have fun playing my game, that's what I want. And, I want to feel this galaxy flush with life, hope, and progress. I'm actually quite tired of Khorne being ascendant, aren't you? We actually have a common goal here, Anathema. I may hate you with every fiber of who I am but I still love you all the same."
"You're not making any sense," Sebastian gave up trying to communicate with the insane entity and continued to race along the boundary of the Great Rift, looking for any tiny hole he could use to find her. He felt Khorne's gaze drift away from him, irritated at the lack of conflict.
"Really? Well, actions speak louder than words, my dear! Here. Out of the kindness of my black heart..." the swirling woman reached ahead of where Sebastian floated, and touched an area of the writhing storm. Immediately, it began to settle. "It just so happens that a ship filled with faithful Imperial monks is traversing the Warp on their way to the frontier, and it turns out that they've just reached the boundary of the Great Rift, and while perfectly aligned with the path of your Astronomicon. It seems that their Navigator made somewhat of a viewing error, and somehow, he miraculously overlooked this massive Warp tear in the sky. Big oops on his behalf. But they won't get torn apart. The high willpower of these Imperial killjoys is causing a bright shadow on the Warp, and while I think it's ugly, it might be of use to you. Seems these monks are actually settling the Great Ocean in their wake! And look, with a little nudging from me elsewhere in the galaxy, the other dumb gods are paying attention to other stupid things, so no one will ever know that this happened!"
The lost Traveler was incredulous at this action by the god, and was suspicious of duplicity. "You're calming this section of the Warp?"
She nodded. "Yup! I also want that curious American woman to live! While these monk guys can't completely heal this area, if you give this rift the old Care Bear Stare right here, you'll break through for a brief amount of time. You'll probably scare the living daylights out of everyone on that ship, which will be entertaining to see on top of all this. Maybe if you're nice to your potential successor, she'll grant you your final wish?"
"I'm not giving up so easily," Sebastian said, looking for the precise area that the abomination had pointed out. Under his divine light, he felt hearts rise and spirits lighten through sensitive souls in the region, and there, just as Tzeentch had instructed, a plain ship filled with Imperial monks had just begun to blunder into the space of the Great Rift. How had they missed the giant scar in the Warp?
"Of course, you're wondering how I know all of this. This was just as planned, as the kids say about me," Tzeentch said beside him with a wink and an oversized smile. "Her prosperity and mine are linked. She raises hope in the Materium with her actions, and change and hope feed me, making me ever stronger! And for you, you can refresh what it feels like to talk to a human from a universe like yours again when you see her. She's still early in her metamorphosis, so I'm sure you'll enjoy that chat. So, don't say I don't do anything nice for you, Anathema! I'll be seeing you around, darling!"
The god abruptly winked away, leaving Sebastian alone and facing the ship filled with oblivious monks as it began to drift into the Warp storm. He floated there for a few moments, examining what Tzeentch had told him, and how it would help the Chaos God's goals. The logic behind it was actually sound. The amount of hope and change a living Traveler would bring to the galaxy by flying around in the Divine Intervention would be staggering, and he was reluctantly forced to concede that the god had a point. Right now, their interests were in alignment, as much as he hated to admit it.
Sebastian willed himself back to his body, and he found himself floating above it like a lost ghost. Other pieces of his personality were now processing what had happened, each attempting to understand it from another perspective. One of his more heroic personalities felt an urge to immediately rescue the strange Traveler woman, hoping beyond hope that this would correct mankind's doomed trajectory.
All of his fractured personalities now converged on the agreement that there was now hope for humanity if the Divine Intervention was active again, but if this new lost Traveler was in trouble right now, he had to help her!
This was probably going to sting, he thought, taking stock of how many tortured souls were attached to him at the moment. A quick look actually confirmed that they were putting more doomed psykers in right now, and among them was a particularly belligerent witch of high potency, an ex-Inquisitor who had gone mad. The man screamed until his vocal cords began to tear as he was strapped into the far nodes of the Throne's machinery.
"The Omega! The Omega!" the man screamed. "She comes from beyond heaven and all the stars! She will kill us! She will judge us all, and all will love her or perish in holy fire! She will kill the Weeping King! She is the last! The very last!"
"I can only hope," Sebastian whispered to himself as he braced his presence, gripping the psykers all currently attached to the Golden Throne, some of whom cried out in holy joy at his touch. This was probably going to blow out a few cogitators and maybe a few minds, he thought. Always more souls where those came from, he thought depressingly.
The last thing he needed to do was to focus all the parts of himself into this act. Sebastian then summoned the pieces of his vast but splintering mind, each set to different contemplations and tasks in the Warp. He drew himself together on the definitive focal point that remained, his dried out body on the Golden Throne.
Tethering many pieces of himself directly to his body was a painful affair, but it was necessary. His old grievous injuries still hurt him, even after all this time, and many parts of him reeled in agony. Under one of his mummified hands, he was reminded of two trapped minuscule motes of ash. It was all that remained of his best friend. A Custodes nearby turned his head, thinking that he saw a finger move.
The names of the Travelers are blessed, he thought, preparing to pull dry all the energy he could in a great reach. While this wouldn't be enough to permanently break the Great Rift, he'd be able to bisect it for a short time.
"Look, I saw it," the Custodes said to a nearby tech-priest, pointing up at the Throne. "His finger, it moved. I swear." The two began to quietly argue.
Here goes nothing, he thought, positioning his fury ahead.
"The Omega! The Omega! The Omega! The Weeping King seeks the Omega!" the last words of the mad Inquisitor rang through the wretched halls of the Astronomicon as hundreds of souls were instantly rended and their bodies fell to dust. Alarms began to blare.
His light blazed out of him in a river of brilliance, reaching across the cosmos and the Warp like holy dragonfire. The facet of his identity that called himself Sebastian swam upon the leading edge of it. Exultations of surprise echoed through the galaxy through many races, both human and alien as they noticed his sudden light. His aim was true, and he passed right over the ship filled with monks as they blundered through the Great Rift. The answer as to why they had somehow missed the Warp storm on their navigation to the Solar Pacificus became clear, as his Sight briefly found a very intoxicated Navigator smiling and laughing with the monks on his vessel. They were drinking beer, and telling stories. All at once, they looked up, and asked "Did you feel that?"
The more things change, the more things stay the same, Sebastian thought, allowing himself a brief smile. He moved onward, faster than both light and thought.
The sea of red hellfire parted before his Sight. A few unfortunate daemons were struck and were burned by his light as it scorched through the Rift, but he did note that no daemons of Tzeentch had been hit. Instead, he even saw that a few of them were watching this incident in interest, cheering as if he was a football player scoring a goal. It seemed as if they were actually allied to the lost Traveler right now, but he knew better than to trust them.
Sebastian continued along to where he had heard her cries, looking to pinpoint her location. Upsettingly, she was indeed stuck within the Broken Desert of Nubua, where insane shades of living hate drained life with their invisible touch. The tortured souls wailed around him as they sensed his entry into their system, far from where his physical remains sat on Terra. It was a world that was actually just beyond the old reach of the Astronomicon, even during good Warp and stellar weather. Psykers died by the dozens, their bodies turning to wasted ash in flashes of gold light.
He was there now. Even in the Warp, Sebastian could hear his final words echoing through eternity in this place."I curse these visions, I curse... I curse these visions, I curse... I curse these visions, I curse..."
It was then that he sensed something off about this area of space. Something was terribly wrong here. Both Materium and Immaterium were fraying against each other, causing the destabilization of this entire region. It was falling apart! What had happened here?
As a beam of holy light, he pushed through the dissolving dust clouds of the remains of the Independent Empires. He had to find her!
Cold wraiths trapped between existences now crowded around him with sharp claws. They were maddened with joy at the prospect of their own annihilation. The lost Traveler's curse had not only killed every single living thing, but it had trapped them between death and life in an existence even worse than dissolution in the Warp. Hands reached out to him. Their cold touch even made his body physically shiver on the Golden Throne as his Adepts frantically rushed about, trying to find the source of whatever had caused the power surge in the Astronomicon.
Weeping King, you return! Weeping King, we die! Join us in eternal death! the shades screamed to him in trillions of dead voices as they began to darken his life. No! He needed to find her!
Touch him not, a soft voice filled his mind, and the shades ceased their attack.
All must join us in death! All must eat of ashes! the shades protested.
The Weeping King has been forgiven, and fate is as it should be, the gentle voice of Nubua's last king was velvet on Sebastian's senses as he pushed through the storm ahead, searching for the one called the "Omega" by one of their long-dead prophets.
A familiar shine of gold ahead as the shades parted before him! Sebastian bravely pushed forward.
Suddenly, the wraiths vanished, and the lost Traveler was now seeing himself as standing on a white road during a perfect day. The road was once again lined with groups of people in colorful robes. They held flowers and watched him expectantly with bright eyes. He was in his old, more humble form, and stood only wearing simple white robes, and not the extravagant armor he had become so used to wearing. Alarmed, Sebastian attempted to reform this representation of space with his willpower, but it was persistent.
"Fear not, old friend. We simply wish to say goodbye, and we will let you be on your way," Nabopolassar explained, walking down the road to greet him. He was smiling widely, and his expression was serene. At his throat, a dark line yawned, but did not bleed. "We welcome you to Nubua once again, Weeping King, here at our ending."
Sebastian was suddenly overcome with emotion as Nabopolassar now stood before him. The ancient prophet-king reached out to embrace him in an unexpected warm hug that felt of forgiveness. It was then that the lost Traveler noticed that instead of fear, hate, and anxiety, the people around him were beaming with happiness and welcome toward him. He now noticed that above them, and at the end of the road, a familiar giant gold eagle hung motionless in the perfect sky, wings spread majestically as if in flight.
It was his old vessel. It was the Divine Intervention! Its gold glittered like heaven in the bright blue sky!
As if knowing his thoughts, Nabopolassar spoke to him, stepping back. "Yes, your divine chariot is here. She has a new captain and a new purpose, and we rejoice at her coming. But, what I wish to tell you that I, and all of us, forgive you for your trespasses, Weeping King."
The lost Traveler was struck mute by these words. He had condemned these people to eternal suffering, and they had no reason to forgive him! A quick observation with his Sight confirmed their sincerity. Were they now truly offering him absolution? Even after what had happened? Why?
"You... you forgive me? After all this time?" Sebastian said, beginning to weep with emotion at the scene around him. All the people lining the road smiled at him, and he heard a murmur of approval wash through the crowd. "After what I've done? Why?"
"The people of the Independent Empires have spent thousands of years in pain and resentment after our ruination, but now, with the destruction of the artifact that held the crystallized negativity of our pain, that time is over. Forgiveness and grace now sing to us as we pass on to the next life, the next experience. The true heart of all empires is that of love, my old friend. It binds us all as humans together, and without that grace, we would all suffer here forever. Our time of torture is at an end. We love and forgive you, Weeping King."
Sebastian fell to his knees, completely overcome. Very distantly, he felt alarms blazing on Terra, but they were very slow. Someone was collecting a tiny tear from his body's empty eye sockets. Only seconds had passed. He didn't have long, but what needed to be said had to be said.
"I'm sorry," Sebastian said, tears flowing heavily. "I'm so sorry for what I did. I was stupid. I'm sorry. I let myself be distracted."
He had become the Weeping King, just like in their prophecy!
"I forgive you," one of the children that had thrown flowers at his feet thousands of years ago said as he bravely walked ahead of the crowd. He was small, towheaded, and no more than four years old. There was a silence.
"I forgive you as well," a black-skinned pearl diver said, walking forward with a warm smile.
"As do I," one of the emissaries that he had met with said to him, her dark eyes sparkling with relief.
Around him, whispers of absolution surrounded the lost Traveler. Sebastian felt the souls around him exhale in relief, their ages of supernatural resentment dispelled, brought about by the words of Nabopolassar and the destruction of the Heart of Worlds. It was finally over.
"You don't have much time, old friend," the last prophet-king of Nubua instructed as he began to dissolve into tiny motes of gold light which floated away like dandelion seeds on a summer wind.
"She's really here, isn't she? The... the one they're calling the Omega," Sebastian quickly asked, remembering his purpose for being here.
"Yes, she is. She is here as we are undone now, and she needs your help," Nabopolassar replied, becoming more insubstantial. The prophet-king turned, and pointed at the Divine Intervention, frozen in the sky above.
"She's... like me, isn't she?"
The king nodded sagely. "The same, yes. She released me from my shell, and now, I live in her heart now as a memory, as many live in yours. She will tell others that our civilization existed, so it will live on in new hearts."
"Thank you, Nabopolassar," Sebastian exhaled as he witnessed the souls around him fall away into eternity like sheets of rain in an October storm. "May you all go in peace."
The Heart of Worlds burned completely away in bright ashes of memory, and with that, the ancient civilization had found everlasting peace.
The world around his tearful perception began to reconfigure, and now, he was pointed directly at the Divine Intervention's head, and right through its center window, despite its Warp shutters being closed. It was flying through the degrading Warp, and obviously struggling as existence continued to disintegrate around it. Without the Heart of Worlds unifying this broad area of space, it was now coming apart.
She was here. Sebastian could feel her.
The melded intelligence of the Divine Intervention and its new Traveler captain gazed up at him, and breathed, "It's you." Her voice was quiet and filled with wonder.
He regarded her for a long moment, critically studying her physical and astral form. Her eyes were gold, and her psychic Corona already had that distinctive inhuman shimmer, suggesting what she would become in time. The Key on her chest glowed warmly to his Sight, a fiery candle of hope for humanity in the dark. He missed having the jewel on his chest, and while he knew its strength was addictive, he secretly deeply regretted taking it off so long ago.
Beyond all doubt, he was now certain. It was true. She was an Inheritor. He further extended himself through the gold vessel with his light so that he could speak with her, causing an astartes crewmember standing aside her throne to fall to his knees in religious ecstasy.
"Yes," Sebastian said, amplifying his voice through the throne she sat in so he could be audibly heard. "It's me."
"You're real," she whispered.
American. She's an American, Sebastian confirmed to himself. The Traveler woman reached out with one of her physical hands as she sat on her own golden throne, the one that had been used as a blueprint to modify the one that imprisoned him on Terra. It even made him somewhat nostalgic to see it again, even after knowing its terrible capabilities. Would he tell her what it had done to him, and what it would eventually do to her?
"Follow my light, little sister," Sebastian instructed as he reached forward with a hand of light, beckoning her forward. "Come. I will guide you to safety. We will talk along the way."