In the streets of Cainopolis, a celebration was taking place. This one was more sober than the wild, unfettered festivities that had followed the Uprising, for it was a time of mourning as much as rejoicing. Where once the Grand Cathedral of the Imperial Creed had stood now rose the House of Remembrance, an even larger monument dedicated to all those who had suffered under the cruel yoke of the Imperium, and to the promise of a better future made by the Liberation Council.

Through the effort of thousands of construction workers and the artifice of the Bringers Of Renewed Greatness, those tech-priests who had sided with the Liberation Council when the hour of revolution had come, the great structure had been completed in less than six months – a minuscule fraction of the time it had taken to build the gaudy cathedral it had replaced. Cain the Liberator himself had come to inaugurate the House's opening, his speech broadcast all across the planet as he congratulated those who had built it, holding them up as exemplars of the devotion and unity through which Slawkenberg would forge its path to greatness.

Even as the Liberator's words renewed the fires of determination in the listeners' hearts, many noticed the shadow that hung over their champion's face as he spoke. As Cain moved on to lead the crowds in silent remembrance of those they had lost, the source of this shadow became obvious. It was well-known that the Liberator mourned for every soul lost to the Giorbas' evil, which was why he had authorized the construction of the House of Remembrance in the first place.

In front of the podium from which the Liberator was addressing the gathered crowd stood a line of USA troopers, resplendent in their brand-new suits of crimson carapace armor and carrying lasguns from the same new factories that the Bringers had helped build in the regions of Slawkenberg hit hardest by the Imperium's mismanagement. Their T-shaped visors shone with orange light as they stood in parade formation, displaying the fruits of their months of intense training, said to have been designed by the Liberator himself, who had even taken part in their melee exercises, and triumphed over every challenger thanks to his mastery of swordsmanship.

As Cain's speech ended and, several long moments later, the last of the applause finally died down, the Liberator withdrew within the House, doubtlessly to reflect on the comrades he'd lost during the Uprising. The people went to perform their own rites of mourning – for there was no one on Slawkenberg who hadn't lost someone to the Imperium's oppression.

In the days since the Uprising, new faiths had begun to blossom in the souls of Slawkenberg's population, now freed from the Ecclesiarchy's shackles. Societies had formed that sought joy and contentment, believing those lifted the spirit from earthly restraints and let it contemplate things it was otherwise blind to. Amidst the ranks of the United Slawkenberg Army, the pursuit of martial excellence and victory over the hated Imperium had become something between doctrine and creed, with oaths to spill the blood of tyrants spoken daily. And with the archives of the nobility now open to all, professors now led great lectures open to all who wished to learn, and through learning elevate themselves, with the most apt pupils being taught other, deeper mysteries.

All of these now paid homage to their lost, even as they looked at the future with optimism.


I stood in silence within the House of Remembrance's innermost chamber and tried to keep myself from screaming.

It really felt as if I, or the entire universe around me, was going mad. None of my attempts to sabotage Slawkenberg's defenses against the inevitable wave of Imperial retribution had worked as I expected – in every single case, things had instead turned out great, which had only inflated my fraudulent reputation even further.

The training program I had suggested for the USA had been based on the one I had gone through at the Schola once I'd been selected as a future Commissar (for reasons I still failed to comprehend), except thrice as intense. The physical conditioning I'd set up had gone just far enough beyond human limits that I'd been confident I'd be able to blame its failure to work on the poor bastards themselves. By all rights, it should have resulted in a bunch of physically broken down men, too exhausted even to consider mutiny. Instead, due to what I could only imagine was the intervention of the Blood God, it had actually worked in turning the motivated but ill-trained ex-PDF troopers into lean, mean, and utterly lethal killing machines.

The ruined palaces of the nobility and sprawling estates reserved for off-worlders had been converted into training grounds for urban warfare, and from what I'd seen during my visits the soldiers actually enjoyed running around the ruins, fighting each other with training weapons and getting used to the often-unappreciated tactical advantage brought by having every soldier equipped with a short-range comm-bead.

I'd been very lucky that, despite the unexpected effectiveness of their training, they were still too much in awe of my reputation to actually fight back when I'd been forced to participate in the games or take part in the close-quarter training. I may have been the best swordsman of my class back at the Schola, but I didn't fancy my chances against these lunatics if they fought seriously.

As the influence of Khorne had spread through the army, so had that of Slaanesh and Tzeentch among the civilians. By now, the Liberation Council's bureaucracy was almost entirely comprised of devotees of the Architect of Fate, while the plebs lapped up the watered-down pleasures of the Dark Prince offered by the Handmaidens' servants. Public order was still being maintained, thank the Throne, as the Tzeentchians were too busy working to scheme, and the Slaaneshi had to deal with people for whom eating cake once a month and having one day in eight off from work were unprecedented luxuries.

Even the industrialization process had gone off without a hitch, faster than even the most optimistic estimates of Tesilon-Kappa. I didn't know what unholy bargains the Magos had made with the machine-spirits, but the factories had been completed in record time, and were producing military equipment at an incredible pace. Without servitors, they were instead heavily reliant on semi-autonomous machine-spirits, with the control stations and posts that required a human presence manned by newly recruited workers from the underclasses of Slawkenberg. Hundreds of them had even been inducted into the cult of the Machine-God, with the most promising being sent to help in the underwater generators. Apparently, focusing on teaching practical skills over theology allowed to really cut down on the time it took to train an adept of the Mechanicus.

So successful had been the Bringers Of Renewed Greatness (or 'borgs' as the hereteks were now affectionately nicknamed by the population that Tesilon-Kappa had been able to spare an entire contingent of their members to assist in the construction of the House of Remembrance. I had expected the works to last for years, but instead Tesilon-Kappa had delivered some sort of anti-grav technology their tech-priests had revere-engineered from the power generators they'd spent decades maintaining which had helped cut down on construction time dramatically. How in the name of the Emperor the borgs had managed it I had no idea.

The newly-completed House was a vast, many-leveled structure with a labyrinthine inner layout that made it easy to get lost and wander for hours, taking in the various memorials that had been built, each dedicated to the victims of a different aspect of the Giorbas' reign. My own underhive instincts served me well in that regard, as did my knowledge of the plans from when I'd been asked to give my thoughts on them.

My wandering through the House had eventually brought me here, in the highest chamber of the building. Unsurprisingly, it was dedicated to Emeli Duboir, known to the population of Slawkenberg as the headmistress of a school for young women, a martyr of the Uprising, and, much to my consternation, my lover, whose death had been the impetus that had driven me to rebel against the Imperium.

Of course, the plebs didn't know that Emeli hadn't actually died, instead ascending to daemonhood partially thanks to my own failed attempt at getting her killed. The Slaaneshi cults had started circulating rumors that her immortal spirit watched over Slawkenberg in general and me in particular, which was apparently regarded as very romantic and already the subject of several mummers' plays in the streets of Cainopolis – and oh, how I hated this name.

At the center of the chamber, surrounded by six windows of tinted glass that cast a fey illumination upon the room as the sun moved through the sky, was a statue of Emeli herself. The first version of the statue I'd been shown had been of me holding Emeli's body in my arms, but I had immediately rejected it. I'd phrased it as the House being meant to honor the fallen, whereas I was very much still alive – although the truth was, I didn't want any reminder of the stories that had spread about me and the Daemon Princess of Slaanesh I'd unwittingly helped ascend.

Rejecting the next and final version, however, had been impossible to do without drawing the ire of the Handmaidens. And so a towering statue of white marble had been built within the House in Emeli's likeness. I had to admit that the sculptors had done an admirable job, though the marble image lacked the vivacity and palpable sense of threat the living sorceress had given off. The clothes of her sculpted semblance threaded the line between modesty and indecency quite well, too, and her face was set in an expression just between determination and joy.

I took a deep breath to center myself. Things weren't that bad, I told myself. Yes, the people of Slawkenberg had taken to heresy far quicker than I'd thought possible, but things could still be salvaged so long as the Imperium's retribution came quickly. My plans to sabotage the planet's defenses hadn't worked out, but it wouldn't matter in the long run. A single world couldn't hope to stand against the might of the Imperium, no matter how much the Dark Gods tried to stack the deck in its favor. If things were otherwise, then Chaos would already rule the galaxy, instead of its great champion being beaten back into the Eye of Terror time and time again.

As I tried to convince myself, I noticed a sudden chill in the air. The sunlight pouring into the room seemed to darken, casting strange shadows upon the statue.

My heartbeat quickened. I was supposed to be alone – even Jurgen had stayed at the entrance, to give me time to think. Yet I couldn't shake the feeling that there was someone else in here with me. Before I could turn around to check, however, a pair of arms draped themselves around my shoulders, and my nose was filled with a familiar perfume.

"Hello, Ciaphas," an equally familiar voice purred. "Did you miss me ?"

"Emeli," I managed to say through the shock. "How are you here ?"

"I am borrowing dear Krystabel's body," she explained, running her fingers across my chest. "Your man at the door was very accommodating of her."

Dammit, Jurgen, I thought to myself. I couldn't really blame my aide : Krystabel had visited me several times before in order to bring information gathered by the Handmaidens, and she was the one who had pushed for the building's construction, so there had been no reason for him to deny her entry. I was more angry at myself for not noticing her presence until now : letting someone with unknown intentions get so close to me was a recipe for a quick and painful end.

"But how are you here ?" I asked. The thought that she had figured out a way to possess her followers at any time she chose was a terrifying one.

"Through Krystabel's devotion to me, and the Immaterial resonance of this place, I can reach out and finally touch you again." She gently rested her head against my shoulder, in a position I would have enjoyed a great deal, if not for the fact that she was an infernal entity from beyond the veil.

"Immaterial resonance … you mean, this place ?"

"Of course," she purred. "Did you not design this chamber yourself for this purpose, beloved ? The six windows, the building beneath us inspiring all kind of intense emotions into its visitors … all of this draws the energies of the Empyrean, thinning the veil and allowing us to be reunited at last."

"I … I didn't really think it would work," I lied to her. I had tossed around some suggestions when Krystabel had brought the plans for the House to me, yes, but those had been made up on the fly.

"Always so modest," she chuckled. "But then, that is part of why I love you."

This wasn't the first time Emeli had used that word when talking to me. It wasn't even the first time she'd done so after ascending to daemonhood : right after she had shed her mortality and become a Daemon Princess of Slaanesh, when I'd thought I was about to die and have my soul be tortured for all eternity for trying to get her killed with the cursed jewels, she had said the same thing to me.

Repetition, I found, didn't make it any less terrifying.

"I'm glad that you came," I told her, slowly resting my hand on her own, more to make myself feel better than out of any genuine hope of being able to stop her from tearing my throat out if she decided to. "The last few months have been … hectic."

"I know," she giggled, intertwining her fingers with mine like we were two juvies out on a date. "I have been watching you."

Well, that didn't sound ominous at all.

"I hope you enjoyed what you saw ?" I asked tentatively, hoping she would mistake the terror I felt for nervousness at fishing for compliments.

"Oh, I did. And apart from wanting to be with you again, I come with a warning. The Imperium is coming, beloved," she whispered into my ear, her voice sweet like honey. "When you led the Uprising, the astropaths managed to send out word before my Handmaidens silenced them. Now, a host has been mustered, and they sail through the Sea of Souls toward this star. I am doing all I can to slow their passage through the Warp, but I am still but a young participant in the Great Game. They will arrive soon."

For a mad moment, as a Daemon Princess of the Dark Prince of Pleasure told me the news I'd been both dreading and yearning for since the Uprising had occurred, I felt like kissing her, but my survival instincts swiftly dragged that insane thought to the gallows and executed it in front of the rest of my brain.

"How soon ?" I asked instead.

"Weeks. A couple of months at most. You must prepare, beloved." The tone of her voice shifted, suddenly filling with venom as she continued : "The Inquisitor who leads them is among the worst of his kind, Ciaphas. He will not stop until all of Slawkenberg burns."

Well, of course she'd say that. But she was a daemon, and I still remembered enough of my catechisms to know that her words weren't to be trusted (not that I'd trusted her back when she'd only been a mortal sorceress, obviously). I didn't doubt she was speaking the truth when it came to the oncoming Imperial task force because I'd already been anticipating such a force to be on its way, and I could think of no reason for her to deceive me on their estimated time of arrival, but there were many reasons why she might be lying as to the task force's purpose.

Even the fact that an Inquisitor was in charge seemed unlikely to me : Inquisitors walked in the shadows to pursue the Emperor's enemies, not directly in the light. That one of them might accompany the task force I was willing to believe (Slawkenberg had, after all, been the theatre of a Daemon Princess' ascension, and I now knew enough of such things to realize how rare and perilous this was), but lead ? That, I doubted.

"I will be ready," I told her, which I suppose technically wasn't a lie. "Thank you for telling me, and for slowing them down."

"I know you will triumph, Ciaphas. And I can think of some ways for you to show your gratitude," she said in a husky voice. "After all, I have been missing you, beloved …"

A few hours later, I left the House of Remembrance, got into my car (driven by Jurgen, who always made it a point to respect the laws of the road despite the fact no law enforcement would've dared to stop us) and returned to my office in the former gubernatorial palace, leaving Krystabel behind to recover from her exhaustion after being possessed by her daemonic mistress. I had, of course, made a show of concern for her well-being once Emeli had withdrawn her influence, and she'd assured me she only needed rest (she had also assured me of several other things, none of which I felt comfortable thinking about).

Once Jurgen had brought me the latest reports on the USA's state of readiness I had asked him for (how he knew exactly where every piece of information was in my office at all times despite it being my office, I had no idea, and could only attribute it to his psychic powers), I considered my next move in light of Emeli's revelations.

She hadn't given me much in the way of details regarding the approaching task force, but I could make some educated guesses. By Imperial standards, Slawkenberg was only scarcely populated, as expected of a vacation world. There were no hives anywhere on the planet, and even the capital wouldn't have deserved to be called a city on a proper hive-world : there were less than twenty millions people living in it all told. According to Jafar's latest census data (it wasn't as if the Giorbas had kept proper records, satisfied so long as they could shake enough money and manpower out of their thralls whenever they wanted), Slawkenberg's total population only barely topped a billion. Before the Uprising, most of them had lived in conditions that were only a few steps up from the underhive I'd been born in, though things were improving nowadays – which, once again, was a damning indictment of the Giorbas' management of the whole mess.

Thanks to me preventing the Khornates from recruiting every volunteer able to carry a lasgun, the USA had been kept at the size of the PDF pre-Uprising. As one might expect of a vacation world ruled by generations of mad tyrants, that number was much lower than what Caesariovi Giorba's oaths to the Golden Throne had officially required him to maintain. In my time as the sole Commissar of the planet, I had witnessed the abyssal state of readiness of the PDF for myself, with entire divisions armed with guns that were barely more than flintlock rifles. Even the unexpectedly productive weapon factories, there had only been time to equip a small part of that number with carapace armor and brand-new lasguns. In total, Mahlone could call upon eighty thousand soldiers.

Meanwhile, some regiments of the Imperial Guard had over half a million troops under their banner, while others barely had a thousand. According to what my old tutors had told me, this was due to the differences between the worlds providing them as part of their Imperial Tithe, and the wide variety of the Militarum allowed its commanders to always use the right amount of force for each situation, avoiding waste and ensuring glorious victory in the God-Emperor's name.

Of course, even at a young age I had been smart enough to see through such a blatant pile of grox excrement. The truth was that the Munitorum drones supposed to manage the juggernaut that was the Imperial Guard had no idea what they were doing, and lots of zeroes got removed or added in the paperwork all the time. Because really, how were, say, a thousand soldiers supposed to affect a warzone the size of a planet ? They could assist the local PDF, yes, providing expert advice and a reserve of crack troops depending on the quality of the regiment, but mere mortals weren't Space Marines, no matter their equipment or training.

It was only in holodramas that a single squad of veterans could take down wave after wave of vile xenos or faceless heretics. It wasn't for nothing that the Imperial Guard was called the Emperor's Hammer : the largest human military organization to ever exist won its wars through overwhelming firepower as much as proper application of the Tactica Imperialis (as well as faith in the God-Emperor, of course, and I found myself yearning for the days when it'd been expected of me to execute anyone saying otherwise).

In any case, unless whoever had prepared this task force had completely dropped the ball, the USA being outnumbered by the Imperial Guard was all but certain. Emeli hadn't mentioned any Space Marines accompanying the task force, and I felt she would've told me if the Emperor's Angels of Death had been called to purge the Liberation Council from Slawkenberg. Unless, of course, she'd caught onto my lies, but I was fairly certain that if that were the case I'd never have made it out of the Home of Remembrance alive.

Given that Space Marines were generally deployed in decapitation strikes and that I was nominally the leader of the rebellion on Slawkenberg, I felt very relieved none of the Emperor's Finest would be involved. Jurgen may be capable of wrecking tanks with his mind, but I doubted that Astartes weren't prepared to deal with such witchery.

I nodded to myself. This was going to work. Now I needed to call General Mahlone, and probably the rest of the Liberation Council, to share the news with them. I could keep Emeli's warning to myself, but Krystabel would realize something was wrong if I did that (it was clear that she at least partially remembered what had happened while she'd been possessed by her infernal mistress), and I still needed to survive until the arrival of the Imperium.

Soon, Slawkenberg would be back under Imperial rule, and I would be out of this madhouse.


In the war room that had been set up within the palace, General Mahlone watched the hololithic projector as the icons marking the ships of the Imperial task force slowly approached the planet. True to the Liberator's word, they had arrived in-system thirty-five days since he'd shared with them the warning he'd received from his lady love's ascended spirit.

The information was being relayed to them from the handful of crafts in orbit, their auspexes kept at a state of maximum readiness for the last week by the tech-priests. The small flotilla had received orders to avoid engaging the Imperial forces in the void at all costs : as the Liberator had explained, the information they provided as the Council's eyes in orbit was far more valuable than whatever little damage they could inflict before being destroyed.

Of course, at the moment, the information they were sending, while useful, wasn't exactly clear.

"Where in the Warp are they landing ?"

Mahlone understood the Liberator's confusion, for he certainly shared it. In the days prior to the invaders' arrival, the USA's high command had run many simulations, trying to identify likely landing positions for the Imperial troops. With the assets at their disposal, it was impossible to defend the entire planet : Slawkenberg had just too much land to cover.

But instead of securing one of the vast, roiling plains that had featured so prominently in the planet's off-world holos, the Imperial flotilla was holding anchor atop a mountain range in the northern continent, and dropping troop transports in the middle of nowhere.

"There is a mountainous resort in the area, accessible almost exclusively through the air," one of the tech-priests buzzed in helpfully. "It does have a landing pad for descent from orbit so that visitors can get there directly from their transport. Our records also indicate that there is a shrine of some sorts in that resort, built by the late Governor's great-grandsire three centuries ago."

The Liberator blinked. "That can't be the reason they chose to go there."

"It's an unassailable defensive position ?" suggested Mahlone, pointing at the map. "Look, the paths that do exist are completely impassable for anything wheeled heavier than a damn horse cart. With the landing pad, they can get all their troops down from orbit without needing to worry about us."

"Yes," agreed the Liberator, "but then what ? They'll be stuck in the middle of nowhere, with no way to get out. There has to be something to this we aren't seeing."

"My lords," another tech-priest called out, "the enemy flagship is broadcasting an unencrypted transmission."

"Put it on," ordered Cain. "Let's see what the Imperial dogs have to say."

The projection of Slawkenberg vanished, replaced by the image of an old man sitting on a throne decorated with skulls, aquilas, and the stylized 'I' that every soul born under the yoke of the Imperium had been taught to recognize and dread as the symbol of the Inquisition. The sight of that sigil, the emblem of the False Emperor's most vicious and cruel enforcers, quickened Mahlone's blood, but he forced himself to remain calm and look at the man sat upon the throne.

He had a severe face and an even more severe expression. His head was completely bald, with a pointed beard and mustache covering the lower half of his face. Even through a hololithic projection, Mahlone could feel the hatred and zealotry that consumed him – and that was before the image opened its mouth and started talking.

"People of Slawkenberg," said the projected man, "I am Inquisitor Fyodor Karamazov. By the authority of the Holy Ordos, I speak with the voice of the Master of Mankind Himself, and I have come to stand in judgement of you all for your heresy. Know this : there is no such thing as a plea of innocence in my court. All of you are guilty of allowing your world to fall out of the God-Emperor's grace. All that remains to be decided is the degree of your sin, and the appropriate punishment. Those of you who have least sinned may be allowed to spend the rest of your lives in toil to atone for your failure to prevent the disgrace that has befallen Slawkenberg, but the rest, from the pettiest heretic to the arch-traitors who brought corruption to this once-fair planet, shall be purged with extreme prejudice, and their screams of agony shall serve as warning to strengthen the faith of all who hear them."

As the broadcast ended, Mahlone looked at the Liberator. He stood still, glaring at the image of the mad Inquisitor, his face white and his hands trembling with fury.


AN : This chapter's a bit shorter than usual. I'd planned to have another scene in it, but then I realized it made more sense to end things here. The next chapter will be much closer to the source material, as there'll be more action now that Cain's carefully constructed plans to avoid danger have reached their unavoidable conclusion.

Most of you saw Cain's sabotage attempts backfiring coming, but I hope that didn't take away from the humor of the situation. As I've said before, Cain basically either rolls Nat 20s or Nat 1s, and I, his DM, am a sadistic monster who delights in his suffering. (Although honestly, considering what I did to Corvus Corax in the Roboutian Heresy, he should consider himself lucky to be in a comedy story).

Also, here is a funny tidbit of lore I found out while researching Fyodor Karamazov : canonically, Karamazov received his Throne of Judgement in 930.M41 after the Abraxan Purges, and became an Inquisitor Lord some time after that. While the timeline of Cain's life is muddled, I'm certain that this story is currently happening before 930.M41, meaning Karamazov hasn't done either of these things.

You may want to check his canon biography to see what might change as a result of him becoming Cain's enemy. Just saying.

The scene with Emeli possessing Krystabel is as far as I'm going to go in describing such things in this story - which is about the same as in the Ciaphas Cain novels, I think. The mods on Spacebattles have approved of the scene in question, so I'm going to trust their judgement on the subject. It's not like that is the point of this story, after all : the point of the story is to laugh at Cain's misadventures, and I assure you, there'll be plenty of that.

(And to answer the many questions asked about this : yes, I'm planning to have Amberley Vail appear in this story eventually. Keep in mind that we're still very much at the beginning of Cain's career, and that while she shows up in the first novel published, Cain went through a lot of things before actually meeting her chronologically).

Please don't comment on the numbers I gave for Slawkenberg's population and armed forces. They aren't that important to the story in any case. Apart from that, I look forward to your thoughts on this chapter and this story in general.

Zahariel out.