I do not own the Warhammer 40000 universe nor any of its characters. They belong to Games Workshop.

Inspired by the Dornian Heresy, by Aurelius Rex.

Happy new year, everyone !

Turn on the epic music, and let's get this party started !

I will not bend.

You have poisoned my sons' blood, seeking to turn them into grotesque instruments of your will, and tempted me with the false promise of their salvation.

But I will not bend.

You have cast me into hell, made me suffer the torments you inflict upon the galaxy, and told me I could end it all if I would submit to you.

But I will not bend.

You have torn through the heavens of my world, stealing the souls of its defenders and turning them against one another, made me listen to the horrified screams of the remnants of their true minds, and whispered that I could release them if I took their place in your service.

But I will not bend.

You have taken my people, broken their will and made them your puppets, and laughed as you threatened me with the same fate, told me that the only way to retain even a modicum of my own mind was to willingly kneel.

But I will not bend.

You have made reality bleed, unleashed the madness of the Great Ocean into reality, forced me to listen to the screams of the innocents, thinking to break my resolve, to drive me into madness.

But I will not bend.

Never.

Why do you not understand this ? Why do you persist, time and again, trying to make me kneel, to break me and make me submit to you ? Why do you continue to hurl your armies and your curses at my sons, even as they stand tall among the ruins of their dreams and defy you with their last breath ? Why do you never relent in your war against my bloodline ?

Here, in this place of primordial nightmares and murdered dreams, I have pondered these questions for so long, as the centuries trickled by and the Imperium I helped build changed under the pressure of History. And now, at long last, as your slaves burn their way through the surface of my world and into my sons' fortresses, I finally understand. I know now why you never relented in your quest for our destruction. In the end, it is such a simple truth, I cannot believe it took me so long to understand it.

The truth is this : you are afraid of us.

You are afraid of my sons, who can see the strings you use to strangle the free will of mortals. You are afraid of my father's light, and you know that they are those most likely to wield its power when the prophesied hour comes. You are afraid of Mankind's potential, of the Dream of ages past that you hid from us in the darkness of eternal war.

But most of all … you are afraid of me. You are afraid of what I represent, I, the one soul who defied your full power, the one soul you coveted above all yet eluded you grasp.

I am not afraid of you anymore, for I know you for what you are. But you are afraid of me.

Aren't you ?

Aren't you, Sarthorael ? Aren't you, Tzeentch ?

I SEE YOU NOW, DECEIVERS ! YOU WILL PAY FOR WHAT YOU HAVE DONE !

In my father's name, for my father's light ! YOU WILL BURN !

I AM THE CRIMSON KING ! I AM MAGNUS THE RED ! AND … I .. AM … RETURNED !

The Siege of Terathalion

Part Five: The Crimson King Risen

And so, Magnus the Red, the Crimson King, rose from his age-long slumber, his soul brought back to his body by the works of his son Ahriman. Terrible was his fury at the desecration of his world, and those who had hoped to snuff out his life faced the full power of the Primarch of the Fifteenth Legion. Across the galaxy, servants of the Great Deceiver trembled in nameless dread, so potent was the terror the Neverborn slaves of the Changer of Ways felt upon Magnus' awakening. Ahriman, who had at last atoned for his terrible failure ten thousand years ago, wept in joy as his father rose, while among the battle between the Rubricae and the remnants of the Black Crusade, Iskandar Khayon laughed, the power of Vindicta coursing through his soul. And Sarthorael, locked in combat against Ephrael Stern, recoiled in horror at the sight of the Crimson King returned, for the Ever-Watcher knew what this portended for its kind.

The storm parted.

The first one to notice was Auspex Officer Mirack Olrec, on the bridge of the Word of Magnus. While the rest of the crew focused on destroying the fleet of the Black Crusade, he had been tasked with monitoring Terathalion for any changes. When the Heralds had sent their reinforcements, their power had weakened the tempest enough for Olrec to be sure they had reached the surface, but the sorcerous cover had reformed almost instantly.

Yet now, the eldritch patterns in the clouds were torn apart over Ahat-iakby. For the first time since the Black Crusade had reached the heart of the Prosperine Dominion, sunlight fell upon the capital city, illuminating the fires and devastation that had ravaged it so much. Olrec was horrified by the extant of the desolation now revealed to the ship's auspexes. Yet the city still stood, in defiance of the hordes that rampaged through its streets. The fortress of the Fifteenth Legion was rich with thermal signatures of all kind, and the Wardens of Ahat-iakby still fought the Chaos Titans in the ruins. The energies unleashed in these confrontations sent spikes on the Word's instruments.

Olrec's vision blurred, and as he reached to his eyes, he noticed that he was weeping. He did not know why, but the image on the auspex, of Ahat-iakby no longer covered by darkness, filled him with a deep sense of joy. There was more to it than the already considerable fact that the sorcery of the daemons had been broken – that would have caused him to rejoice, but this was much more, even if he did not understand how yet.

He turned to report the change to Lady Sarkath, and froze. She was smiling, her expression softer than Olrec had ever seen on the face of his stern commanding officer. Across the bridge, other officers were touching their faces, finding tears running down their cheeks. After the defeat of the Black Crusade's fleet, they had held position, impotently watching as the world they had sworn to defend warred against the hordes of the Archenemy. Their lack of information and inability to act had eaten at them, tempers growing frayed as frustration mounted – but now that was all gone. Now, they knew something had changed. Something right had happened, something good.

'It's him,' said the Lady Admiral, so low Olrec nearly didn't hear her. 'He's back.'

Olrec knew who she meant then. He was no psyker, but even so he could sense it. A presence, that for all of Olrec's life had been distant and barely there, so much so that he had never noticed it, had grown – it had awakened. Like a reassuring hand had come to lay on his shoulder, Olrec knew they were not alone. Another, more religious soul would have thought it the hand of the Emperor, but Olrec was a son of the Dominion, and he knew there was another, much closer individual who fitted the bill for that kind of intervention.

For who would pierce the darkness of Chaos above Terathalion, but Magnus himself ?

Ahriman knelt by his father's side, head lowered. A preternatural silence had fallen on the Sanctum, as all stopped in the tracks to behold the Primarch rising from his millennia-long slumber. It was very likely Ahriman's eyes were the only ones not fixed upon his gene-sire – not that he needed them to see him. The Crimson King's aura was as potent as ever, the damage Magnus' spirit had suffered during his slumber healed by the spell that had returned it to his body.

It had taken nearly everything out of the Exile : part of the reason he was kneeling was because he wasn't sure he could stand at the moment. But it had been worth it. Ahriman would gladly have sacrificed far more in order to return his Primarch to his Legion. In fact, he was aware that a small part of him had hoped that the Laughing God's spell would require that he give his life : that way, he would have atoned for his past mistakes. Now, however, he had to face the judgment of his father for his terrible failure. But at least, soon it would be over. Soon he would know.

Magnus rose with slow, careful motions, remembering how to move his body after so long spent incorporeal. Ahriman felt the gaze of his father's eye fall upon him, and dared to raise his head and look at him through his helmet's eye-lenses. The Crimson King was as he remembered him from the time before he had been felled by Sarthorael's spell. He was clad in the bronze and ruby armor in which his sons had laid him to rest, and his mane of red hair flowed behind his head, kept in place by a golden band engraved with tiny scripture that Ahriman knew to be the names of every one of his sons who had died during the Heresy and the Scouring that had followed. He also recognized each of these names. He had fought alongside most of them, and known the face of all, even if it had only been through looking at their pictures on their Legion datafiles. So many names, so many lost brothers. And yet they were only a fraction of the numbers of Rubricae who surrounded the pyramid. How many of his brothers had Ahriman's hubris killed ? How many heroes had the Imperium been denied because, in his arrogance, he had thought himself his father's equal ?

'Ahzek,' said Magnus, his voice piercing through the fog of self-recrimination. His hand reached out and laid upon Ahriman's shoulder, and the Exile flinched at the contact. He could feel the heat of his Primarch's flesh through his armor, radiating through the metal.

'Thank you.'

And that was enough. With these words, spoken in a kind voice instead of the accusatory tone Ahriman had spent ten thousand years expected, he could see the truth at last. He was not the one who had slain his brothers : they had been killed by the curse cast upon them by the Great Deceiver. All he had done was try to save them from that doom – try and fail, yes, but better to fail than not to make the attempt at all. The guilt was still there – Ahriman doubted he would ever be completely free of it. Nor should he ever be, he now realized. To let go of it would lessen him – would make him less human and more like the things he had spent so long fighting against. The pain of loss was still there too … but the self-loathing was gone, washed away by a father's understanding and forgiveness. Ahriman felt a great burden lift from his shoulders, and he sat a little straighter.

Then, ignoring the protestations of his muscles, he rose to his feet, leaning on his staff for support. Magnus' grip on his shoulder tightened, and the Primarch helped him to stand to his full height. He was still as a child before the Crimson King, but that was to be expected.

Together, Primarch and Legionary turned to face the war that had come to them.

Magnus' gaze descended onto the two figures clashing further down the pyramid. One was shrouded in golden light, the other in eldritch, sorcerous illumination. The first one was unknown to him, but the other was entirely too familiar. Hatred crept onto the Crimson King's noble features, and he took a step down the pyramid. Pale fire rippled across his skin, ans his eye blazed with sorcerous light. Around him, the Empyrean stirred as the Power of Retribution sought to return to the soul that had birthed its origin ten thousand years ago. It felt … good. It felt right. This power, this wrath, it belonged to him – it had always belonged to him. It filled a hole in him he had not noticed had been there since he had heard of Prospero's destruction. With it, there was nothing he could not do.

'My sons,' declared Magnus, 'defend yourselves !'

The voice of the Crimson King echoed across the entire titanic chamber, and the tens of thousands of Rubricae who had been too far from Khayon to react to his own call to arms raised their bolters, their eye-lenses ablaze with psychic flames. As one, they turned toward the despoilers in their midst, and began to advance, as relentless and unyielding as the tides of Terra's ancient oceans.

Magnus began to take a second step down the pyramid, gaze fixed once more upon Sarthorael, his ancient enemy staring back with dread clear in its black, inhuman eyes. The sight of the Ever-Watcher caused memories to flicker within Magnus' mind :

A ship, ancient and venerable, falling apart under the guns of a traitor armada. The sound of alarms and the screams of the wounded. The stench of blood, human and transhuman. The battle beyond the confines of this ship is won, but the vessel is lost. The cold realization of the trap as its jaws close in, too late to escape, to late to do anything but defy it its maker to the end. The hideous laughter of the winged figure towering above him as he kneels, drained by his efforts to protect the crew from the daemon's malice long enough for them to reach the evacuation pods …

The Crimson King tightened his fists. Other memories passed in his mind : the suffering of his sons as he was reunited with his Legion. The dreadful sight of hundreds of Legionaries bearing his gene-seed confined to stasis caskets, their bodies rebelling and mutating under the effect of some unknown flaw that hadn't really been a flaw at all. And then, the screams of the galaxy as it burned, slowly and agonizingly, for millennia, while his father grew ever weaker on His throne and the Dark Gods laughed as they devoured the souls of those the Primarchs had sworn to protect. So much suffering he had witnessed, so much pain he had been unable to prevent. So much horror, caused only to hurt him, to make him break … But he would not break ! Never !

'SARTHORAEL !' shouted Magnus. 'I will kill you !'

And at that moment, just as the Primarch of the Fifteenth Legion was about to give in to his desire for vengeance, to fully welcome Vindicta into his soul and become its avatar, a figure appeared before him. It was translucent, like the wraiths that accompanied the Heralds of Prospero in battle, but unlike them, it cast a faint glow of silver and gold rather than a cold and pale flame. It hovered before Magnus, looking down at him even though it was only human-sized.

[See Nemris' illustration on deviant art : The Crimson King Rises]

The figure was that of a woman, one that Magnus knew, for Tzeentch had shown him her death in order to torment him even further. This was the ghost of Khalida, who had fallen to the blade of Azrael mere hours ago. She looked at the Crimson King, her expression kind, and spoke :

'This is not the way, Magnus,' she said, and her voice was soft like the kiss of a spring's breeze, yet the conviction in it undeniable as the strongest storms of a death-world. 'This is not what your father intended for you. Duty comes before vengeance.'

The shade of Khalida faded away on those words, dissolving in a cloud of shining dust that vanished before it touched the steps of the pyramids. Magnus stopped in his tracks, his mind aflame. He understood what she had said, even if he did not know how she had been able to say it. Finally, on the very edge of the precipice, he realized the trap that had been laid for him.

He was tempted, of course, oh how he was tempted. He yearned to welcome his ancient rage back in, to let himself be infused with what it had become over the centuries. Vindicta had once been part of his soul, and as such he could draw upon it far more easily than any other being in the entire galaxy. He could become Vindicta's avatar, the vessel through which the Power of Retribution would enact its judgement upon the wicked. And how terrible would that judgment be – breaking the Black Crusade would be but the first step. Not even the Traitor Legions that dwelled within the Iron Cages would be safe from his wrath. Even his fallen brothers would be driven and broken before him. He would shatter the hold of the Dark Gods upon the human race, burn it away in the pyre of retribution. He would be able to bring justice to the stars, at long last, justice for all the bloodshed and the torment of the last sixty million years. Justice for his and his sons' suffering.

But she is right. This is not what Father intended for me, he thought. This is not my fate, not my role.

He would be terrible indeed … but in the end, that would accomplish nothing. The Dark Gods would endure. Their slaves would die, but they would find others, as they always had. Vengeance, that greatest of temptations, would be hollow and meaningless, no matter how momentarily satisfying it would be. The cycle of torment begun by the War in Heavens would go on.

And Khalida was right. He had another duty, assigned to him in an age long since past. His was not the path of retribution – the path of the destroyer. And duty … duty came before vengeance.

The Crimson King let go of his connection to Vindicta, and the web of Fate was redrawn once more. The doom of the Slaves to Ruin grew a little more distant, a little more unlikely – and the light of hope that its dark fire had covered became visible again. Magnus' strength diminished with the loss of his connection to the Power, but it remained great, greater than it had been during that fateful confrontation a hundred centuries past, aboard the Photep. This time, he wasn't spent from protecting the crew of the Gloriana-class flagship from the corruption of Sarthorael's and the Dark Angels' spells, nor from the constant effort of shielding his sons from the flesh-change.

He could do this. He did not need Vindicta's aid to defeat Sarthorael. Magnus raised his hands, and for the first time since the mythical days of the Scouring, the power of the Crimson King was unleashed in a torrent of silver, red and golden lightning that flew toward the Greater Daemon. The attack wasn't a most powerful Magnus had ever let loose, but it still held more than enough energy to turn a Land Raider to molten scrap.

It didn't even ruffle the Ever-Watcher's feathers. As the bolt was about to hit, a sphere of multicolored light erupted around Sarthorael, absorbing and dissipating the energy of Magnus' attack. Wards, forged across entire centuries and empowered with the sacrifices of a thousand and one cults of Sarthoarel throughout the entire galaxy, specially designed to protect the daemon from Magnus' power. The Crimson King frowned, and lowered his hands slowly, as a wave of despair surged among the Imperial defenders and the Chaos invaders cackled in glee.

'Did you really believe I would not be prepared for this ?' mocked Sarthorael. 'Did you really think I had not considered the possibility of your return in this final hour ? Oh, it was only a flicker of possibility, a one-in-a-million chance, to be sure. But you and your brothers have already proven, time and again, that you care nothing for odds – it is part of what makes you so desirable in the eyes of the Pantheon. It is why the Dark Gods love you so, and fight so hard among themselves to decide which of them can claim you as their very own.'

'We are not yours,' said Magnus, unfazed by his attack's failure, his voice gaining in strength and conviction with every word. 'We never were, and we never will be. Those of my brothers who fell to Chaos are naught but broken echoes of their former glories. The truth is that you have no power over us, Deceiver. You only have corruption, ruin, destruction. Your servants diminish themselves the moment they are tricked into believing into your hollow claims of supremacy.'

'And what of you ?' sneered the Greater Daemon. 'Your species is dying, Magnus. It has been dying for ten thousand years. Your father's empire is crumbling from all sides, while the power of Chaos is ascendant. What do you have, against such might ?'

'We have unity, and that strength is something Chaos will never have,' answered Magnus, undaunted. 'You will tear yourselves apart, as you always have. It is in your nature.'

'You are wrong. There will be unity in Chaos before the end. It is ordained, and your own hands have made it a certainty. By your actions, you have damned yourself. By your defiance, you have ensured the destruction of your species. Mankind could have served the Dark Gods; now it will be devoured by the Primordial Annihilator.'

'Still you try to deceive me ? I have endured these fabrications for an entire Age ! Now, as I am free from them, so shall I free all of Mankind from your twisted lies !' shouted the Cyclops. 'We are not puppets ! We are not slaves ! Our destinies, our wills, belong to no one but us ! The promise of my father's godless kingdom will be made a reality !'

'Your brothers,' whispered Sarthorael mockingly, 'feel differently. You are strong, Magnus, stronger than any of them perhaps … But not strong enough to face them all.'

'If I face them alone, I could not prevail,' admitted Magnus. 'But I will not be alone.'

'You are, and have always been, alone, Magnus,' taunted the daemon. 'And you will always be … forever. That has ever been your fate, Cyclops, from the moment your existence entered the Web of Fate. Yours is the path of the solitaire, isolated from the rest of the world by his knowledge, his power, his difference. You have altered much of your destiny since it was first conceived within the Court of Change … but not this. And yet, in the end, all of this is irrelevant,' continued Sarthorael, a cruel joy in its voice. 'In your folly, you have rejected the power that would have enabled you to challenge me. Now, Magnus … you will die.'

Sorcerous lightning gathered around the Greater Daemon's staff as it pointed it toward Magnus, preparing to unleash a curse that, this time, would not merely send the Crimson King falling into the Warp. This time, the curse would kill him, and with his death Sarthorael would kill one of the Imperium's few remaining hopes. Ephrael Stern shouted a cry of alarm, and was about to leap, to place herself between the Ever-Watcher and the Crimson King, when Magnus smiled.

'You understand nothing,' he said softly. 'I will not be alone … Because I was never alone to begin with. My sons,' he called out, his voice filled with a Primarch's command once more, 'open fire !'

As one, more than a hundred thousand Rubricae suddenly turned on the spot, all of them facing the pyramid at the Sanctum's center. As one, they raised their bolters, aiming at the immense winged figure that stood halfway to the construction's top. And as one, they pressed their weapons' trigger.

Thousands of bolt shells impacted against Sarthorael's shields at the exact same time, the incredible precision achievable only thanks to the psychic command of Magnus and the unity of the Rubricae. The spells woven around the Greater Daemon strained and collapsed in a blast of energy that sent the Daemonifuge flying, before she called upon her power and ignited two great wings of golden light. She landed atop the pyramid, near Ahriman, who stood still, stunned into silence.

In Sarthoarel's eyes, the dread had changed to horror.

Only one of Iskandar's hearts was still beating. His third lung was the only thing still injecting oxygen in his bloodstream with any reliability, and his vitae was leaking from several wounds that Madox' healing hadn't fully closed. His armor was so battered that, while it still held in one piece, it was one solid hit away from falling apart. Every muscle in his body hurt, and several of his organs were strained to the breaking point keeping him functioning. He was, all things considered, in considerable pain, and there was a Chaos Lord charging toward him, holding the daemon-possessed Axe of Morkai. And to add insult to grievous injury, he did not even have a weapon of his own. He had spent the last power cell for his pistol long ago, and his power axe had been shattered like glass.

And yet, Iskandar was laughing.

He couldn't help it. Part of the reason why was the sheer absurdity of the situation. How unlikely was it that he would face the exact same threat – a Wolf Lord dedicated to Khorne wielding the Axe of Morkai and seeking to kill him most violently – twice in a single day ?

But mostly, he was laughing out of joy. After ten thousand years, his Primarch was back. The psychic presence of Magnus was washing over him in waves, filling the air with potential and clashing with the darkness that had followed the Black Crusade's forces.

And as for the son of Russ seeking to kill him … Khayon had never needed weapons in the first place. His body may be nearly spent, but the strength of Vindicta flowed through him, its power renewed by the parting of the shadowy veil caused by Magnus' awakening. Blackmane would not kill him this day.

The Young King had succumbed to the blood rage that always threatened all who served Khorne. Iskandar would have recognized the signs even if Ragnar's aura hadn't been aflame with bloodthirsty madness. The way he moved, the over-strong grip on the Axe, the howling coming out of his helmet's vox-grill, those weren't exactly subtle indicators.

Time seemed to slow down as the Space Wolf got closer, dilating like in the old paradoxes that the Thousand Sons had discussed under the stars during the Great Crusade. Iskandar's thoughts sped up, considering possible courses of actions and discarding them until he found one that satisfied him. Slowly - so slowly - he rose his arms, just as the Axe of Morkai descended, intent on cleaving through his helmet and his skull.

Mere centimeters before the daemonic blade started to cut through the helmet's ancient ceramite, the Scourge of the Wolves caught it between the palm of his gauntleted hands. Blackmane growled, and tried to force his reclaimed weapon down, his rage allowing him to summon strength far beyond what even the transhuman body of an Astartes could exert without damaging itself. Muscle fibers in his arms and armor tensed and snapped, yet still the Axe of Morkai went no further. Had Ragnar not been so lost to bloodlust, this would have struck him as odd, impossible even. In his wounded state, there should have been no way for Khayon to block the daemon weapon so : even his psychic powers should have been stymied by the Khornate entity bound within the blade. Yet still, the axe did not move.

That moment, that confrontation, was more than a contest between the enhanced strength of two gene-forged supersoldiers. It was a match between the daemon of the Blood God Morkai, Bloodthirster and Destroyer of Ur-Galog, and Vindicta, newborn Power of Retribution, acting through the one who had followed its path the longest. And Vindicta was winning. Morkai was mighty, but the Power born of Magnus' wrath and ten millennia of silent prayers was mightier, especially when it was expressed through one such as Iskandar Khayon.

[See Nemris' illustration on deviantart : The Dread of Morkai]

Cracks began to spread across the surface of the Axe's blade, shining alternatively with the blood-light of Khorne and the cold fire of Vindicta. A keening, enraged wail rose through the air as the very essence of Morkai was attacked, and the old daemon felt pain for the first time since it had been imprisoned within the weapon. Then a dread realization slowly dawned upon the knot of rage and hate that composed the Neverborn's consciousness : Iskandar was about to destroy it utterly, to burn it out of existence with the flames of Retribution.

From the very dawn of Chaos, it had been an inviolate truth that no mortal could destroy a daemon. The Neverborn were timeless entities born of the galaxy's emotions and sins, and were unbound by such petty concepts as life and death. Whether fragments of the Dark Gods or creatures born from events so traumatic they had birthed their own sentient reflections in the Sea of Souls, daemons could only be destroyed by entities of enormous power. Almost always, this had meant one of the Ruinous Powers themselves, until the Emperor had revealed Himself and the children of Chaos had learned to fear the Anathema's Light. That had been one of the reasons why the Dark Gods had united to destroy Him.

But now, as the fire of Retribution seared away the threads that made up Morkai's core, it became clear that Vindicta, the Warp entity that Mankind had inadvertently created since the Heresy, could do what Chaos' ancient enemy had been able to do. It could kill them. Worse, it could empower mortals to kill them. Morkai screamed, and Khayon laughed.

The axe exploded as Morkai fled its doom, escaping its ancient prison through the very cracks the attack upon its essence had caused. Now uncorporeal, the Bloodthirster started to dissolve, and sought refuge in the closest vessel : the flesh of he who had wielded its power most recently. Reeling from the explosion of his weapon, still caught in the throes of insensate fury, Ragnar had no chance to defend what remained of his soul. The daemon slipped inside his flesh, intent on devouring the Wolf Lord's spirit and use his body as a gateway through which it could manifest its full terrible glory.

But while Ragnar hadn't been in any state to resist the daemon's possession, his soul was still a potent one, bearing the Mark of Khorne for his many deeds in service to the Lord of Skulls. His spirit roared back as Morkai, weakened from the wrath of Vindicta, tried to consume it. Perhaps in time the Greater Daemon would have succeeded, or perhaps Ragnar would have cast the Neverborn out of his body. But there was no time for their battle for supremacy to play out, for Iskandar was still in front of them, still filled with the power that had nearly destroyed Morkai. And far too close for comfort was Magnus the Red, whose power dwarfed even that of the Scourge of Wolves.

United in their fear, Ragnar and Morkai turned from Iskandar and fled, running with all the speed the daemon's power could lend to the Chaos Marine's legs. The newly created Secondborn ran out of the Sanctum, leapt over the broken bodies of Legionaries and cultists and the dissolving slime of vainquished Neverborn, and vanished from sight.

Left behind, Iskandar fell on his knees, breathing with difficulty. He wasn't quite sure what he had done - his intent had been to break the axe and banish Morkai, but halway through the process Vindicta's power within him had surged to new, unprecedented levels. Regardless, it had taken its toll. Surrounded by a protective circle of Rubricae, the Herald of Prospero turned his mind inward, to try and heal the worst of his remaining injuries.

After all, judging by the sounds coming from the pyramid, it looked like things were well in hands without him needing to be involved anymore.

Always, for the last sixty million years, the Ruinous Powers had taken from the mortal races. Always they had stolen, corrupted and despoiled, and what they took could never be reclaimed, only replaced by something else, something that they would try to steal too, again and again. Their ravenous hunger had only grown more potent as the ages passed, and the poison of Chaos spread through the Sea of Souls. Treasures, cities, kingdoms, lives, souls, children : all these and more, the Dark Gods took from the universe, lost forever in darkness.

But not today. Not anymore. The Primordial Annihilator had taken enough from Terathalion.

Today, Magnus swore, he would take something from it.

Not in the name of vengeance, or even in the name of retribution, for there was nothing he could do that would ever balance the scales, such were the crimes committed by Chaos against Mankind … No, against all species who had lived since the War in the Heavens. Not in the name of his own grievances against the canker that dwelled at the core of the Sea of Souls, for this was not about him. It had never been about him, nor about anyone else in particular.

He would do this in his father's name, with the power He had given him.

And he was sure neither the Emperor nor Khalida would mind if he made it hurt.

'Sarthorael,' declared the Crimson King, his eye burning with a demigod's judgment. 'You have no power here. Your sorceries are hollow. And your staff ... is ... broken !'

With a thunderclap, the gnarled wood stick in Sarthorael's hand exploded, fragments embedding themselves in the Greater Daemon's body or shattering against the ground. Infernal ichor spilled from the wounds, but Sarthorael was in too much shock at Magnus' casual destruction of his staff to even notice his injuries. The staff had been made from the flesh of his own supplicants, tens of thousands of years ago. The cultists had called upon him to save them from their enemies, to take them to his side and let them remain there for eternity, and he had granted them their wish, fusing their souls as he had their bodies. Over the millennia, he had added more souls to the staff, but now, Magnus had freed them all, and they sighed in relief as they vanished into oblivion, releasted from their torment at last.

Before Sarthorael could recover, Magnus struck. Moving with a speed no Astartes could ever match, he descended the steps separating him from Sarthorael, and unleashed a right hook with enough strength to pierce through the armor plating of a Land Raider. The Primarch felt something crack under the impact, and a handful of curved teeth spat out of Sarthorael's beak, dissolving into smoke that was then burned away by Magnus' psychic aura. With their loss, Sarthorael felt his control over a cult of assassins he had cultivated on a hive-world half the galaxy away vanish, his servants left leaderless and abandoned.

He struck again, with his left fist this time. The right eye of the Ever-Watcher burst, leaving a gaping, smoking crater on the Neverborn's avian face. With the loss of his eye, Sarthorael found that he could no longer summon his perfect knowledge of the present : all he could see were his immediate surroundings, and a cracked and twisted reflection of reality. The daemon stumbled backward, fell, and the Cyclops leapt upon him, radiating cold, contained fury and the golden light of the Anathema.

Magnus punched Sarthorael again.

And again.

And again.

And again …

Pinned on the ground, with the aura of the Crimson King eating away at his essence even as Magnus' fists pummelled him and tore him apart, Sarthorael writhed and flailed, his claws striking back and doing little more than scrape the paint of the Primarch's armor. Golden fire emanated from Magnus' hands, burning the eyes of the daemons and traitors who looked upon them. Sarthorael was no longer threatening or taunting, no longer speaking at all – he was shrieking, wordless screams of pain and impotent anger emanating from his ruined mouth. The daemons of Tzeentch that had begun to enter the chamber stayed away, looking on with a mix of shock, glee, and the ever-present hatred of all Neverborn. Though the humiliation of the Greater Daemon meant a defeat for Tzeentch, the warp-born creatures still relished the torment of one who had towered above them all for countless aeons.

Then the realization of just what Magnus was inflicting upon Sarthorael spread among the Neverborn, and they charged toward the Crimson King, heedless of the Rubricae that stood between them and their goal. The ashen brothers of the Fifteenth Legion tore into the Neverborn with bolter and blade as they tried to force their way through. Less than one daemon in twenty managed to reach the circle the Rubricae had formed around their lord.

And there they found Ahriman and Ephrael, fighting back to back to keep the horde away from the Crimson King. Even with the will of Tzeentch driving them forward, the Neverborn could not pass them. Another Lord of Change might have been able to – Ahriman was nearly exhausted by his efforts to bring Magnus' soul back to his body, and Ephrael's own power was drained from confronting Sarthorael – but after the Ever-Watcher's sacrifice of his kindred to break the Sanctum's protective wards, only lesser daemons remained. Even in their diminished state, the two Imperial heroes were more than a match for these wretches.

Eventually, Magnus' assault relented. By this point, little remained of the once-mighty daemon, beyond a mess of ruined, charred flesh that nonetheless clung to existence. Blackened feathers clung to a wasted frame that twitched in agonized spasms. To those who possessed the second sight of psykers, the damage was even more extensive : the amalgamation of aethereal threads that composed Sarthorael's essence was shredded, its power leaking back into the Warp as it continued to fall apart, even after the attack ended.

'This cannot be,' croaked out Sarthorael, his voice a pitiful echo of what it had been. 'How ? How can you mortals defy the will of the Architect of Fate ? You are all puppets ! All slaves to the will of Fate ! How can you deny my master's plans, time and again ?!'

'I told your master before,' said Magnus in between sharp breaths, as the effort of unmaking one of the strongest Neverborn in existence caught up to his surhuman physiology. 'You have no power over us that we do not give you, whether in fear or ignorance. And I know what you are … and therefore, I do not fear you either. That is the true power of knowledge : to dispel the shadows cloaking evil, and reveal it for the petty, weak, pathetic thing it really is.'

'We are your masters !' shrieked Sarthorael. 'You live, you struggle, you die, for our amusement ! You are but dust compared to our immortal magnificence !'

'YOU ARE A LIE !' shouted the Primarch. 'You are a plague, a curse, the failed legacy of those who came before us all ! You are a mistake,' he continued in a calmer voice, 'one that has haunted the galaxy for far, far too long. And you will be rectified as such.'

The Crimson King plunged both of his hands deep within the mess of mutating, seared flesh and dissolving essence that had been the architect of the Black Crusade. A cluster of eyes blossomed within the mangled ruin of Sarthorael's face, staring at Magnus, wide in panic. The Primarch stared back, his own eye blazing with psychic power, and he spoke one word :

'Burn.'

Golden fire erupted from the Primarch's hands, and Sarthorael shrieked as the last remaining fragments of its being were annihilated. All trace of the ancient treacheries that had spawned the Ever-Watcher were erased in a cascade of unbridled energies, and the Court of Fate shook with the outraged scream of Tzeentch as one of the Dark God's most powerful agents met the True Death.

The Sword of Secrets sang in Azrael's hand as he fought, whispering hidden truths inside his skull. It told him the names of every Rubricae he encountered, those they had received upon joining the Fifteenth and the nicknames they had had as children, before they had been taken from their families and reforged into weapons of war, only to fail at the last step and be reduced to dusty spirits trapped within prisons of ceramite.

Yet even in their diminished state, the Rubricae were still powerful warriors. Even with the Sword of Secrets, it took Azrael more than one blow to fell them, and their bolt shells rammed into his armor with enough strength for him to feel it despite the protective enchantements woven upon the war-plate. More than that, they had overwhelming numbers, though their positioning at the battle's beginning prevented them from bringing them to bear.

It was perfect. Once Sarthorael had destroyed Magnus, Azrael would help the Ever-Watcher perform the ritual that would bind the Rubricae to their will, dragging the Fifteenth Legion into service to Tzeentch as it should have been long ago. Khayon the Black would be made to witness the destruction of all he held dead a second time, and through this torment the Dark Angels would remake him into a servant of Chaos, bringing Vindicta itself into the embrace of Ruin.

It would be a long endeavour, the work of centuries, but it would result in the doom of the Imperium by the hand of the very Power its childish cries for "justice" had created, with the renewed Fifteenth Legion leading the way as the forces of Chaos crushed a path to Terra. All that remained was for Sarthorael to reach the top of the pyramid and …

... and then, out of nowhere, two beings who should have been far, far from here were there, and the Crimson King was awake, and, and …

… And everything was going according to plan. Magnus had risen, and claimed the power of Vindicta within himself, severing the thread that would have led him to assume his true purpose in the False Emperor's schemes. By giving into his anger, the Crimson King would break the forces of the other Dark Gods, and allow the Changer of Ways to ascend as the supreme Chaos God, as was His divine right. Vindicta, newcomer to the Great Game, would be manipulated into doing the work of Tzeentch, all at the cost of a few pawns …

… but a figure Azrael was sure he had killed himself through the blessings of Tzeentch appeared before Magnus, and her words made him see through the trap, and ...

… As planned, Magnus had abandoned the power of Vindicta, giving in to his weak and foolish nature. Had he held on to it, he would have been an actual threat, but Azrael had known he would not. If the Cyclops had any ambition, he would have understood the truth and knelt before the Architect of Fate long ago. Now, without the fire of Vindicta to aid him, he would be unable to pierce through Sarthorael's wards, and would fall by the Greater Daemon's hands.

And then, Azrael saw Magnus command the Rubricae. He saw Sarthorael's wards shatter under the weight of a hundred thousand bolt shells. He saw the Ever-Watcher brought low by the Crimson King's bare fists, then beheld the true destruction of the Lord of Change, something that should not have been possible yet had happened all the same. He saw all this, and this time, it was too much. This time, the evidence couldn't be denied.

That –

No –

But –

Brothers –

How –

I –

Stop –

Please –

Azrael screamed, a primeval sound of soul-tearing anguish and agony. Too many contradictions, too many denials, too many failures, too many plans ruined, all at a time when the God of Change Himself was reeling from the loss of the Ever-Watcher. The constant lies that dominated and reshaped Azrael's mind from one moment to the next were fraying.

Whatever true identity had been buried under them when Tzeentch had blessed-cursed the Lord of Lies was threatening to emerge again, straining under its chains. But the divine spell wasn't going to simply break : its hold on the favoured slave of the Great Mutator was too strong for that. It twisted and bent, but it endured, anchoring itself deeper into the soul of the Grand Master to resist the force of the truth that sought to rip it out. And so, caught between these two opposing powers, the soul of he who was called Azrael suffered.

Yet even as Azrael's mind dissolved, his body still moved, propelled by fighting instincts so deeply ingrained that even the uncountable years the Lord of Lies had spent dancing at the end of Tzeentch's strings could not erase them. The Sword of Secrets parried and struck, and so lost was Azrael that he did not even notice when the relic blade severed the head of his ally, the Space Wolf Leifar the Immortal. The Immortal's body and armour turned to ash before they hit the ground, and whether the unholy pacts Leifar had made would return him to life yet again or had been dissolved by the Sword of Secrets' power remained unknown.

The Grand Master's rampage ceased when his sword was blocked by another blade, wreathed in pale fire. The impact's psychic resonance drew Azrael out of his agony, and he looked in stupor at the Rubric Marine who had managed to parry his blow.

The Rubricae's armor was of an ancient design that harkened back to the days immediately after the Heresy. A bolter was mag-locked to his tigh, and he held a khopesh clad in a power field with both hands. Like all of his silent brothers, a name was inscribed upon his shoulder paldron in golden lettering, inscribed after his life had been stolen by the Rubric to ensure some record of his identity remained.

Though the name was written in the language of Tizca, Azrael could read it. It said : Helio Isidorus. The name meant nothing to the Grand Master, but then again, in his present state, nothing meant anything to him. He knew nothing, understood nothing, except his pain.

And then the Rubricae did something every son of Magnus knew to be impossible :

He spoke.

His voice was sepuchral and echoed within Azrael's burning skull, but it was undeniably a voice, and it undeniably came from the armoured warrior before him.

'Cousin,' he said.

For one terrible moment, Azrael stood on the brink of reclaiming his freedom from the god that had enslaved him. The voice of the Rubricae, the voice of a being so deeply in touch with one of the few powers in the galaxy that were able to oppose Tzeentch, cut through the fog of pain that shrouded his mind, through the tapestry of lies woven around who he really was.

But before the Grand Master could break free, the God of Change turned His gaze upon him once more, and the shackles of deceit tightened around his soul, causing Azrael to wail in agony. The Rubricae – no, not "the Rubricae", Helio Isidorus – simply stood, immobile, his khopesh still holding the Sword of Secrets at bay. Then he spoke again :

'Go back to the shadows, cousin. The light will find you soon.'

And just as the memory of those words vanished from Azrael's mind, so did the Lord of Lies vanish from the Sanctum, snatched away in a flare of azure lightning. A moment later, every son of the Lion in the room was also gone, reclaimed by their true master as his power on Terathalion waned. Salvage, that was what they were, recovered from a most bitter defeat. Tzeentch's scheme to claim the Fifteenth Legion at last had failed, and now the Chaos God was recouping his losses, anticipating the next move in the Great Game. The Choirs of Change started to plot and scheme, seeking ways to recover from this setback, each of the teeming Neverborn a fragment of the Changing One's own immense mind. They considered all that had happened, and considered the myriad possible futures that the events had destroyed and created in equal measures.

Strangely, the words spoken – against all reason and possibility – by the lone Rubric Marine were one of the things that disturbed the nightmarish Warp entity the most.

On the vast plains around Ahat-iakby, a lone silhouette stumbled. The land bore the marks of the Black Crusade : what little vegetation had survived was twisted, thorns and poison everywhere on plants that should have possessed neither. The earth itself was dry, as if all water in it had either evaporated to form the cloud cover that was only beginning to break apart over the region, or had retreated into the depths to flee the corruption on the surface. The crusading army had left more tangible traces of its passing as well : unholy symbols were carved into stones, and primitive monuments to Ruin had been hastily assembled. Some were made of rocks; others, of bodies, bound together into shapes pleasing to the denizens of the Empyrean, and with eldritch runes etched into their flesh. It would take months for the Thousand Sons and their surviving allies to purge all traces of the Black Crusade, if they ever managed it at all.

Ragnar Blackmane, the Young King, was on the very edge of death. A dozen bolt wounds, each of which would have slain another Astartes, were visible on his armor, as were several cuts from power weapons and chainswords. A crystalline shard from the battering ram that had brought down the outer walls of Ahat-iakby jutted from his tigh, glowing with crimson light. His helmet was gone, destroyed or cast aside in the heat of battle, he did not remember, and the black hair that had given him his name hung around his head, matted with blood – a not insignificant part of it Ragnar's own. The only reason he wasn't dead yet …

Back kill maim blood take his skull break him claim his soul for the Blood God …

… was the daemon that now shared his flesh. Morkai, once bound within the axe of Logan Grimnar, now lurked within Ragnar's body. The Chaos Lord wasn't sure how it had happened - there had been the rage, the charge on that black-armored necromancer, and then …

Find him hunt him kill him kill kill kill …

… he could not remember. This wasn't the first time he had lost his awareness in the middle of a battle, but it was the first time he wished he hadn't. One moment he had been about to slay the infamous Scourge of the Wolves and avenge Logan's death, the next he had been running from the Sanctum, a daemon's power coursing through his body and raw, primal terror through his soul. Even now, despite the daemon's cries, the mere thought of going back was enough to turn his blood to ice. If he went back, he would die; that, he knew.

It hadn't been Khayon who had terrified him like that, he was sure of it. He remembered a light, bright and hot, different from the cold fire of the Heralds' strange maleficarum. So, by the fangs of Leman Russ, what had it been ?!

…

… and why had that last thought finally caused Morkai to be silent ?

He shook his head. Too many questions, and too few answers. He had to focus on what he knew. Clearly, the Siege of Terathalion had failed. He couldn't use the full array of new perceptions his transformation into a Secondborn had bestowed upon him, but he could still sense that Sarthorael wasn't there anymore, destroyed by the same burning power that had caused him to run. Without the daemon, Ragnar and whoever else had survived was trapped on Terathalion, with no way to escape. If the Thousand Sons unleashed the tens of thousands of silent Astartes that had been guarding their Primarch's body, they would purge the planet of the Black Crusade's remains in days. Even with Morkai's power, Ragnar would not be able to fight them all, but the daemon's presence would also render any effort to hide pointless.

He was going to die on Terathalion, he realized. There was nothing he could do about it. Barring a true miracle, it wasn't a question of if, it was only a matter of when and how.

Ragnar was considering how to take as many sons of Magnus with him as possible when the space before him tore open with the sound of shrieking souls being consumed. He recognized it : this was a Warp Portal, opened through ritual and sorcery. Judging by the stench of blood and death that emanated from it, he doubted it was the work of any witch of the Fifteenth Legion – they were more talented at hiding their corruption. But then, who … ?

A figure appeared on the other side of the opening in reality, clad in power armor whose color could only be obtained by repeatedly drenching ceramite in copious amounts of fresh human blood. The warrior wore a horned helm, and the mark of Khorne was inscribed on both his war-plate and soul. In his right hand, he held a great warhammer engraved with the eight-pointed star of Chaos, and his shoulder plate displayed the emblem of a black bird with a blood drop at its center. Even from whatever distance separated the two of them, Ragnar could feel the power that radiated from this individual. This was no mere warrior of the Blood God, but a Lord of Khorne, favoured by the Lord of Skulls.

The warlord held up his free hand toward Ragnar, palm up. He did not say anything – or if he did, his words did not survive the journey through the portal – but the meaning of the gesture, and the intent behind it, were clear enough. Slowly, a feral smile formed on Ragnar's face, as he finally recognized the emblem on the warlord's shoulder and understood what was going on.

The Young King stepped through the portal, to meet with the Blood Raven and plan vengeance upon the Fifteenth Legion with him. And for the first time since the Axe of Morkai had been broken by Iskandar Khayon, the Bloodthirster laughed, and the terrible sound was echoed in the Sea of Souls by Khorne's own, mocking, nightmarish laugh.

[See Nemris' illustration on deviantart : Servants of the Blood God]

It had been a few hours since the last Chaos scum in the Sanctum had been slain, and every Thousand Son in Ahat-iakby knelt before their Primarch, at the foot of the pyramid. Only the Rubricae remained standing, watchful guardians whose vigil never relented. The army that had laid siege to Ahat-iakby had fled with the defeat of its leaders. The Chaos Marines had abandoned their mortal followers behind, Dark Angels and Space Wolves fleeing through sorcery or dark tech devices. Not all sons of Russ and the Lion had departed, however : some, by choice or not, were trapped on Terathalion, and would need to be purged.

Magnus sat on one knee, eye closed, on the exact spot he had been after he had obliterated Sarthorael. He had not moved since that fateful confrontation, first recovering from the titanic effort, then focusing his mind on what there was still to do. His armor, perfectly preserved during his slumber, had reactivated upon his awakening, though it had not fully completed its reboot before his brief and brutal confrontation with the Greater Daemon. Now, however, it was fully functional once more, its marvellous technology as efficient now as it had been the first time Magnus had donned the armor. It had been a gift from Kelbor-Hal, a replacement for the one the Lion had ruined beyond repair during their battle in the Cavea Ferrum, and it had served him well during the Scouring.

The Primarch's old authority codes were still valid, giving him full access to all Imperial communications across the Terathalion system. Since he had destroyed Sarthorael and unmade the spell that had blocked transmissions, Magnus had been listening, forging a picture of the situation in his mind. Reports had come in from orbit and from the other cities. Apparently, each of the armies that had detached from the Black Crusade's main thrust on Ahat-iakby had learned of his awakening, though they had reacted in different ways.

Some had scattered, abandoning their sieges in fear of retribution, forgetting that there was no escape from Terathalion's surface. Others were redoubling their efforts, though a few orbital bombardments under the Lady Admiral's command had soon broken them apart. And one, the army that had attacked Ferhaen, was simply gone, along with the entire city - its buildings, its people, and the very ground upon which it had stood. Casting his psychic gaze upon the city's former location, Magnus felt nothing but a hideous, gaping void, and he forced himself away from it lest it draw him within its darkened depths.

Magnus opened his eye and found his sons staring at him, their auras rippling with awe mixed with an undercurrent of dread. He chastised himself – what had he been thinking, staying immobile for hours, when they had just finally seen him rise ? He smiled, dispelling their fears that he had somehow been lost to them again, and stood up. With a gesture, he beckoned the two Astartes who stood at the front of the circle of Legionaries arrayed around him – one clad in crimson, the other in black.

'Let me see you, my sons,' asked Magnus.

Ahriman and Khayon removed their helms, exposing their faces for the first time in Emperor knew how many years. The face of the Exile was no different from when he had cast the Rubric ten millennia prior : noble and regal, proud even. There were, perhaps, a few more lines on it, hinting at the weight of the regrets and guilt he had carried for so long. Tears ran down his cheeks as he beheld the image of his father with his own eyes.

About the only thing Khayon shared with his brother was the color of his skin – the caramel tint of long-lost Prospero that was still proeminent among the people of Terathalion, even after generations of mixing with other populations and that was the same as that of Ahriman's Terran tribe. The face of the first Herald was covered in scars and wrinkles, the legacy of a hundred centuries of war against some of the most terrible dangers to Mankind. His eyes blazed with the cold psychic light of Vindicta, as did a pattern of veins beneath the skin. Ravaged lips were curled in a smile, revealing two rows of perfect teeth – a strange thing, considering the ruination of the rest of the face.

'You have suffered in my absence, both of you,' he said at last. 'And you have done well. But it is time for your separation from the Legion to end, Iskandar. The Heralds will rejoin the Legion, for my silent sons will need your special talents to guide them in the coming wars.'

'My Primarch …' asked Ahriman, his voice hesitant, 'are you sure ? Having the Rubricae take part in battles outside of this sanctum … It will expose us to the rest of the Imperium. They will know what we did to protect ourselves in your absence.'

'The Imperium will soon have more important problems to deal with than that,' chuckled Magnus, though there was no joy in it. 'Yes, Ahzek, I am sure. All of our strength will be needed in the coming days, I fear. We cannot hold anything back. First, though, we must clean our own house. There are many slaves of Ruin left on Terathalion; they must be dealt with before the Fifteenth Legion can sail forth and bring help to the Imperium wherever it is needed.'

'With you to lead us, my lord, we will crush all who defile Terathalion's soil,' declared Khayon with confidence. It broke Magnus' heart to say his next words, but he knew he had to.

'No, Khayon. I will not take back the Legion's leadership.'

The look on his sons' faces would have been comical had he not been able to feel their pain. By his mere presence, he had given back the hope that everything would be all right, that all the horrors they had witnessed would end at last. And now he had snatched that hope away.

'There is something else I must do,' he explained. 'I wish, with all my heart, that I could lead you once more, see how you have grown in my absence and fight by your side against the enemies of Mankind. But I cannot. Duty calls me elsewhere, and in these times, none of us can turn from what we must do, or all will be lost.'

He raised a hand, silencing their protests before they could leave their lips, and continued, infusing his voice with some of the authority with which he had once commanded armies and convinced entire planetary governments to lay down arms and join the Imperium peacefully :

'Khayon, you will lead the Legion in cleansing Terathalion of the corruption of Chaos. Bring peace to the Lost, and death to the Damned. You are the chosen of Vindicta : act as such.' Then, the Crimson King turned toward Ahriman and the smaller, gold-shrouded figure that knelt behind him : 'Ahzek, Lady Stern, the two of you will accompany me to Terra.'

Magnus looked up then, staring past the Sanctum, past Ahat-iakby, past Terathalion even, to something only he could see - a distant light in the heavens, a fire burning against the endless dark. The fire had once blazed strong, and banished the dark, but now it sputtered, reduced to little more than sparks and embers. Time was running out, for him, for everyone.

'It is time I speak with my father once more,' said the Crimson King.

The vault existed atop a thin tower that rose thousands of meters above the dry and cold surface of a lifeless world. Only thanks to precise calculations and the use of priceless archeotech maintained throughout the millennia by a dedicated cadre of tech-priests could this construction endure without succumbing to its own weight. At the foot of the tower was a great fortress, built for the sole purpose to guard the one and only access to the vault : the space elevator at its center. Only one soul may enter the elevator at the same time, and the psykers bound within the fortress would scour it for the slightest trace of corruption all the way up, stopping their inquiries only at the last moment before the gates of the vault opened.

If the soul-bound witches detected any corruption, the elevator's occupant would be eliminated. There were a total of seventy-three ways to do this, all redundant and independant from each other. In all of the vault's history, there had been a need to use them five times, each incident a mark of shame upon the Fifteenth Legion, whose servants maintained and defended the vault.

The only source of illumination in the chamber was the flickering light of stasis fields, hundreds and hundreds of them. The kilometers-long vault was filled with these, each filled with a relic, artefact, or tome of dark knowledge. Some had been claimed from the strongholds of defeated heretics, others penned by the sons of Magnus themselves, collecting their observations on the Ruinous Powers and their servants. But all, because of the very lore they contained, were twisted things of evil, whose malevolent aura was contained within the vault by layer upon layer of wards engraved upon every metal slab that composed its hull.

There was no air, no heat, no gravity within the vault, and countless security systems scanned the tight passages between the stasis fields, linked to powerful automated defenses ready to open fire at the slightest variation from acceptable parameters. The security was the best an entire Legion's resources could build without anyone alive being required inside the vault proper. Even the machine-spirits that controlled the entire apparatus were buried deep within the vault's hull, away from possible contamination.

That was why, when the Warp shook with the echoes of the Siege of Terathalion and the awakening of the Crimson King, there was no one in the vault to notice the momentary flicker in one of the stasis fields. It was a minute thing, caused by a shaking in the aetheric tides being picked up by the vault's wards. But it was enough for something to slip out of the relic contained within that field, a small sphere of black stone covered with tiny engravings. The thing took shape within the vault, becoming a figure that had no face or true body to speak of, only a small bundle. It walked across the length of the vault, triggering none of its alarms, stepping from one spot to the next without actually moving through the space in between.

The figure arrived before another stasis field, and reached into its bundle to produce a small, pulsating piece of flesh. It laid it against the field, and, with a sizzling sound, the creature was turned to ash, while the field vanished. In the few seconds it had thus bought, the figure pulled another thing from his bundle, a copy of the grimoire that had laid within the stasis field. Quickly, it switched the copy for the original, just in time for the stasis field to reassert its hold onto that small piece of reality, separating it from the rest of the universe's flow of time.

The figure and its bundle vanished, and the Archives of Shame were empty once more.

AN : ... Well, that certainly was one hell of an opening move for the Times of Ending, wasn't it ? And there is so much more to come.

Thanks to Jaenera for beta-reading this, and thanks to Nemris for his amazing artwork. I asked much of him this time, and boy did he deliver.

Unlike the previous ones, this chapter was written in a more "classic" manner. That's because there was no one left to introduce, and the events of the chapter, while momentous, all happen within a few minutes of each other (well, a few hours if you count the ellipsis between Sarthorael's destruction and the conclusion). The normal format did not seem suitable to me. Also, one of the songs I listened to while writing this was 'Revolution Spark' by miracleofsound. Listen, and see if you can guess why !

I am sure many of you would have liked Magnus to become the Avatar of Vindicta. But I have walked that timeline, and trust me : you do not want to see what happens in the end. There are other plans at work, other destinies that must be fulfilled if the light of true hope is to be restored to a long-suffering galaxy.

In many ways, the Siege of Terathalion was a ray of light for the Roboutian verse. The good guys fought the bad guys, and the good guys won through a combination of what can only be called miracles. I think after ten thousand years of bloody war and slow decrepitude (because yes, even if the RH verse might be considered less grimdark than the canon, the Imperium and the other "good guys" have still been bleeding for a hundred centuries by that point), I should start the last round with something more heroic.

Now that the Siege of Terathalion is concluded, I am not going to immediately start on the next "book". Before that, there are going to be several shorter chapters. One of them is already completed - it is a very short one, inspired by a story I read from the Advent Calender of the Black Library and written in one evening a few weeks ago. Another, I think, is going to be like the previous chapters of this book : a historical read-out of events with scenes and biographies, but this one will only take one chapter. I am not going to tell you what it will be about, because that would be some massive spoilers. If I follow the plan I initially posted on spacebattles, the next book is going to be about Maccrage, within the Ruinstorm. Something is going to happen there - something that will shake the stars themselves ...

Thanks you all for your support. The readership of the Roboutian Heresy hasn't stopped growing since I began to write it more than three years ago, and I fully intend to take this story to the end ... whatever that may be. There is so much to write, so much to tell yet. I have scenes written that will not be published before months, years even, things I cannot wait to see how you all will react to. I am creating a myth here, and I am loving it.

Oh, and I am almost done with the next chapter of the Fifteenth Ascendant, while the next chapter of Warband of the Forsaken Sons is advancing slowly but surely (it's an important chapter and I have been off that story for a while, so I am taking my time to make sure I get it right). My no-longer-so-new job is keeping me busy, but I still find time to write, don't worry.

If you enjoyed this chapter, have questions and clarifications, don't hesitate to ask me, either by review or by PM.

Zahariel out.