Before we start just a reply.
No i havent deleted chapter 19 Xenomorpth1987. If you cant see its due to FF, not me. Its still there for me.
Over the course of the last year the walls within the Nightfall had seemed warmer, more calm. The ever present edge that bled from them seemingly silencing themselves.
If he didn't know better he might attribute that simply to coincidence, or but a trick of his mind… He knew better. The Sin Eater knew better.
For years long before this day he had silenced the madness of a god's mind. He had taken the dreams of the impossible so that his lord could rest ever slightly in peace… It had never been enough. He knew it, long before anyone else, what truly had been happening to the Primarch. The slow, methodic descent into self-hatred. Into self-loathing, into remorseless nihilism, and he could do nothing. It was not, after all, his job to keep a Primarch sane. It was not his job to defy his king's own decrees. His job was to archive and to bring the ever fleeting peace within his ever more nightmare filled mind.
He had done that for years, witnessing the impossible as he silenced those visions from the Lord of Murder´s mind. Neatly and silently writing every detail he witnessed. Every crack in the picture, every festering wound, every fault line on his lord's mind's eye from which his very sanity seemed to vanish, slowly, like blood seeping from a strangled wound.
Until the impossible happened…Until the impossible happened. Suddenly his dreams burdened him less. The nightmares shifted, changed.
As if he had been gazing at the abyss so long that when he stopped it was surreal.
No longer did he dream about the end and the death. No longer did he see Nostramo shattered on the void, the what could only be the Emperor broken upon as a giant golden figure carried him on his back. No longer did he see simply the feathers of purest white tinged with the blood of a brother´s murder.
No…
Now he saw the end, and a beginning. He saw the crowning of darkness, he saw something in the sky of Nostramo, something that could only be a moon. He saw the emperor carried by another alongside the golden giant as tears fell down his face, and the feather… He saw the feather crimson and wet beside his Lord's own flaying knife.
He saw.
"Tresh," the voice came from behind. The Sin eater turned and got up from his seat. He knew that voice. "My Lord Nighthaunter," he said, bowing his head.
"Sit," the primarch softly said, his hand caressing the man´s shoulder as he walked to the side of his desk.
He obeyed… Slight confusion in his mind. Where had his lord come from? The one question he always had during the few moments his lord chose to come to the Sin Eater's office and not call him to the Sanctum. Still there was no point dwelling on such a question, even if he answered there it would give him little solace from which unseen opening did his Primarch enter his locked office.
"Out of all alive in this galaxy only you know the depths of my foresight. Only you are aware how much I see when I close my eyes." He said, his back towards the wall as his eyes fell on me. I felt so small then. Was this how ants felt when a man looked towards them? No… An ant wouldn't have even noticed. "And even with the almost impossible task of archiving all of it, you have yet to fail me."
His hand rested again on my shoulder, like a soft caress… His grip was firm, but only moderately so, he was taking care how much strength he used.
"Thank you, sire." I said , unsure of what was truly going on. The chain of uncertainty over my heart, fear on the back of my neck. I am afraid… I am afraid something has truly changed.
Before he asked my opinion concerning Nostramo. Before he asked me if I would give another chance to our home… Before he listened to me as a mortal, he listened, without forcing words to be spoken. He asked, like a man would ask, a man without enforcing an already predetermined answer. He asked without threat or coercion and I thought that was a fluke.
Something abnormal that would vanish and return to normal. Yet I should have known it wouldn't be the case.
I should have known, for I had seen his mind for years before that day and the vitae from that strangled wound had stopped bleeding… That wound, had for what I thought would be a moment, scar.
"However, as you must have noticed, your usefulness has diminished considerably."
I felt a shiver on my back… Usefulness is the one thing that guarantees survival in the Nighthaunter´s court. Especially from his sons´s flaying knives. Usefulness, the right to bear his coin, the silver trinket that spared one´s flesh from any flaying knife.
"The darkness of my mind has diminished… The visions shifted and no longer nightmares stain my every waking mind. I no longer need you."
"I understand my lord…" I said, resigned, knowing what it meant. Death always is near you when you serve amongst the eighth, it seems it has simply come for me.
He laughed, a short spontaneous laugh, but the Primarch laughed.
"I no longer need you, Tresh… But I will keep you."
"What?" I mumbled absentmindedly. What did he mean by that?
"You must be aware that I keep a mortal within my council."
Melkor, the same man he first met half a decade ago. A mortal who had somehow skirted at the edge of death, who had confronted a Primarch ignoring all notion of self-preservation, who, through words, attempted to change things from what they were. Melkor, who in a string of events that could only be attributed to fate, managed to do the impossible, defying a Primarch and surviving. A mortal that… That made no sense how he still lived.
A man who argued with a mechanicus´ priest for the simplest rite their priest performed and stared unwavering into any man's eyes should they desire conflict. He was impossible.
He was Melkor, advisor to a Primarch.
"Lord Melkor. I thought his councilship was unofficial" It was strange speaking like this to the Primarch. Strange not being strangled by his mere gaze.
"The Kyroptera will be reformed. There are many things that will be reformed."
The way he said it… Was he sad? Could the Nighthaunter even feel sadness? Hatred, loathing, envy he knew he could, but simple innocent sadness?
"You of all have seen the depths of my mind. I want you to continue archiving, what you have seen and what you will see but I also want your insight. Recent events have shown me that perspective is of great import."
I was speechless… I didn't know what to say. What could I say?
"No you honor me my lord or a simple thank you?" he said, almost amused. I tried to speak, to say something, of gratitude, of something, but the only thing that left my mouth was a frozen exhale of hair. For I could not speak… To whom was I speaking? It was unmistakably the Primarch, the King of the world I hailed, but… But was he truly?
He tapped me on the shoulder.
"I hope you know where your coin is, and learn to speak more openly. I don't need yesmen, if I needed I´d call my sons who bear the red gauntlets."
I looked at his face, there was no pressure, at least not the usual one, and there was a fang out… A fang on his snow pale face, and his eyes…
His eyes were different. I don't know how, but I knew they were.
"Yes sire." I stammered the words out…
For a moment I thought I heard a stifled chuckle and then he was no more. As if he was but a leaf of the wind he vanished and I was left alone, quietly looking at my coin.
"The Kyroptera," I mumbled to myself. The Primarch's advisory body… Out of all the many experts the Primarch had access to, he chose to give me a seat… "Why" was the only question that was worth asking in the depths of my mind. A question I had no answer.
Ahrain had been the first rune that lit up when Eldrad Ulthran, farseer of Ulthwe searched the weave for what may come.
Ahrain, the rune of shadow… of deceit, of secrets, of the night or so the younger race would understand as. For the aeldari, it was a simple word, with far more meanings and subtle truths. For their tongue was exactly that to the mon-keigh, subtle in an imperceptible way to their eyes.
That had been the reason that drove him from his craftworld, why he had travelled to a strange world, tucked away in the galaxy´s distant edge. Further than even C´nath, a maiden world of his exodite kin near to what the humans call the Ghoul Stars.
Now, he walked through shadowed glades, beneath towering trees that whispered with the wind. The woods, the glades, the world itself… It was uncanny. It bristled with life, as balanced and pristine as any maiden world, yet it was not one. Every tree, every seed, every leaf, every creature, each was too familiar, too reminiscent of Terra's lost wilderness. He knew this. He had seen such things before, long ago.
Still the sunny meadows, the undisturbed running water, peaceful sea and the frost iron glacier in the far north.
This was a strange world. It felt different, more alive, aetheric energies flowed here calmly through the very soil. It made everything look brighter more… lush. More.
"Ahrain…" a voice said from the clear tongue of the aeldari. It was sweet and melodious, even and unremarkable. "If you seek shadows or deceit, you are far… Very far from what you seek"
Eldrad turned, his movements so precise and yet fluid it would put the greatest dancers of humanity to shame with such naturality. He was met by a deep uncanny sight, a face so utterly similar to that of any other Aeldari, yet so utterly alien.
Once he had been told that was how the mon-keigh felt when first seeing their kin. It was utterly alien. Suffocating even, however he was an elder farseer. He couldn't let such a thing impair him.
His hair was golden as the sun, so long it reached beyond his shoulders to almost halfway to his waist, his eyes were soft yet bore a deep crimson in his pupils, and his attire was of the deepest black. The color without color, the tone of Arhain. The tone of shadows.
And just like the shadows, he knew, from simply a glance, what was before him was not something of this world.
The aether coalesced around him, feeding him, just as the very plants of this world fed on it. It coursed through it, like blood running through a body's arteries.
"Who are you?" The farseer questioned. The Staff of Ulthamar slightly before him, close enough to use it against his foe in close quarters should it be needed and yet posing no immediate direct danger.
He smiled. "I have used many names…" he paused curiously. His expression was just like one of his kin would have, in fluidity and grace though while those of his kin were usually faster to a minute degree compared to monkeigh, this one seemed to purposely make his slower. "Though I doubt you would be surprised by that, you that sit amongst the wise."
"What do you call yourself now, Sha'ielwe?"
"What my master desires." He said calmly, reaching to the floor and welcoming a small dark feline creature to climb to his shoulder. "However, that is not what you are here for, eldar. I can help… If you so desire it."
How lowly could this creature of the other sea believe him to be to accept a bargain, such a bargain.
The being started to walk slowly, as if Eldrad did not matter, his steps deliberate as if he knew the very soil he walked upon.
Eldrad watched him carefully, this was strange… Disturbing. The creatures of the other sea always desired, craved even souls, and he was a creature of the other sea, his witch sight told him as much, however he seemed to not care for such. Not even the servants of the changer of ways were so… aloof… Their desire of scheming was always present. This one seemed utterly uncaring for that.
With careful fluidity, as if he was caressing a babe, his hands touched the bark of a tree. "There was a friend of mine that loved these woods…" he said with almost sadness, longing, his tone was deep. As if he knew these woods had seen more than they let on.
Something was awry. "We never saw eye to eye after a time, she made her choices and I made mine. No matter what, I still thought she gave too much for them." His crimson eyes turned to him, to Eldrad.
"You know what is to see someone you care, make their own foolish choices." He said sighing softly
"What is your game?" Eldrad thought within his mind. "Preying on the trauma of his people´s downfall? A cheap ploy."
"Ahrain," he said, his right hand moving in perfect movements recreating the rune´s symbol in the air, its contained shape crackling with shadowy energy.
"Ahrain," he repeated, "led you to this world." He softly pushed the immaterial rune forward. It stopped before Eldrad, before it vanished like a wind.
"However…It is yet time for this to be found. It is not yet time I act outside of my bounds," he caressed the small black feline, it purred happily. "It is yet time for my master to find this world…"
"Your master, who is it?" Eldrad questioned, his staff glowing with the barest of energy coursing through it.
"Would it comfort you, farsighted one, to believe I am but another pawn of the Great Enemy? Or does it trouble you to wonder if I am something else entirely?" He said almost amusingly. His voice seemed rich like molten gold and sweet like honey.
"No, though I can see why you would assume, if you knew me. My master …" he closed his eyes softly. As if he was searching for the right word.
"He was the great one, wise and powerful… But he is not your enemy, Eldrad of Ulthwe, as Loec is aware."
"You speak as if he is no longer that."
"Oh he is… He never lacked wisdom, though he now is smaller. Still he is my master, and power alone is incapable of changing fate."
Changing fate… His master could change fate, then it meant he could see it. Like a farseer peers through the veil and chose which strand to follow, so seemingly did his master…
Wind rose up slightly, the breeze making their long flowing cloaks, one dark as midnight, the other silver as the moonlight, weaving about them.
"Loec." Eldrad called out, the breeze softly touching his eyes "Who is he?" It seemed an Aeldari name, and by the way he had spoken it seemed he should be aware, yet no one, from any tale, legends or acquaintance possessed such a name.
He smirked. "What a punch line it will be when you realize it. However it is not for me to tell you. Nil ann ach cleasai, agus tá an iomad measa aige air féin."
The trickster thinks too much of himself, why was he telling him this? Why those specific words. What did he mean? The meaning danced just beyond his reach, like a shadow slipping through his fingers.
"Have faith in the trickster´s gamble, farseer. Your path is to guide your kin for now, guide them. Rhana Dandra is at your doorstep, you must guide them. Trust in the laughing troupe to prevent it. The Shadow Dancer is much more aware than you."
"You would have me trust the laughing god blindly?" Eldrad questioned calmly.
"Yes," he replied. "After all, blind trust is what your kin demands of its lessers, is it not? Besides, is he not your last god?"
The way he smiled, the feeling from his eyes. As an aeldari he was much more attuned to the veil around him than many races, and as one of the oldest and most powerful farseers even more than his kin, but what he felt. What his senses warned… A chill ran down Eldrad´s spine. He pointed the staff forward.
The feline on his shoulder jumped to it, seemingly ignoring the pulsing aetheric power coursing through it. The black feline creature, one that could be mistaken for a gyrinx, it and they were quite similar, but…
But Eldrad knew this one was different, less material.
"Take him with you," he said, the farseer´s eyes shifting from the beast towards the being uncanny elf again. "My master will recognize it once he sees it."
He turned to the animal, only to realize he was nowhere to be seen. In his place, hanging on the staff was a single ring.
Eldrad picked it up. He looked at it… It was unadorned and was silver as the moonlight with a dim lit fire that pulsed with a faint aetheric power. So faint in fact it was as if it was not there. Indeed, material or immaterial would hardly matter for this.
"Leave this place, and trust in your betters." He heard, lifting up his head again to the elf only to see nothing there. It was as if he was but a leaf on the wind, a whisper beneath the moonlight. In a place where the sea coursed, like blood yet didn't break the material universe with his presence.
It was as if the sea was rebelling against his own laws and refusing to break the material. It was all too strange.
"Nil ann ach cleasai, agus tá an iomad measa aige air féin." Eldrad said to himself. The trickster thinks to much of himself. "Yet it seems I have but tricksters to trust. I will have to seek the council of Rillietann."
He thought before leaving.
.
.
If there was a place within the Nightfall, that behemoth of plasteel and blue adamantium, that home of terror and flayed flesh, that seemed contrary to everything that legion that called it, its home, it was the home of the ancients. It was the Armoury.
The only place where the martial truth of a space marine could be amply seen. Where instead of the loose fluid, hardly disciplined eighth legion traditions were eroded and replaced by the certainty of order, absolute and inviolable.
Each and every weapon was stored neatly and orderly within the almost sacred halls of the armoury, bound within walls certain as steely strength of adamantium. Bolters and its ammunition, glaives, blades, spears and claws bound by their destructive intent together, battleplate of many variants, terminator of the Contekar or even the Atromentar to the lightest of armor used by the bringers of terror that were the raptor squads .
Yet this was not all that was kept in these halls, second only in sanctity to the Primarch´s sanctum. In its depths slumbering where time ran not were the veritable engines of death that were commanded by the most ancients of Astartes. Piloting pieces of hardware capable of laying waste to almost anything, their size or smaller, yet bearing its pilots, wounded already beyond the almost godlike healing factor of a Space marine, into a torture beyond what any deserved.
The dead that walk, the men that even in death still serve, through the torture of the self brought upon the unending agony of their flesh that should be dead but was denied such a release.
In the armory, beyond the the weapons and armors, the spear and shield of an Astartes were the ancients of the chapter, of the legion. The venerable dreadnoughts, locked where time ran not.
"Awake him," a voice said from nowhere, startling the mechanicum adept tending to the armory.
He turned to where the voice came from and was met by a giant of a man, towering before his frame.
"The rites take time, they-" he said in a quick response, his tone metallic yet somewhat human.
"Awake him," was the only reply he got, "or I will wake him myself."
There was a blurt of binary, a curse in that most sacred language of the martian cult, an innocent and indirect proof of his low rank within the red robed priesthood. After all no proper mangos would use the language of their so called Omnissiah, their so called god.
He then turned to the giant, knowing who he was, for after all only a single one aboard that ship could order them in such a way, and he knew. All priests hailing from the forge moon Ulan Huda knew. It was after all, within his home sector, with bonds, treaties both secret and known to the wider Imperium.
It was this Primarch who found their planet, who brought it to the Imperium, perhaps his first integration, one through diplomacy instead of the most common method of his legion. Ulan Huda, was in a sense the Primarch´s own forge moon, much like Kiavahr was the nineteenth´s own forge world.
"I will transmit your request to the Magos."
"No," he was cut off, the Primarch´s voice hissing under the shadow of his hall "Do it."
"But, but…" he stammered.
The Primarch growled, tired with the adept´s words. Mechanicum and their rites. He pushed the red robe away, being careful to not throw him against a wall with his strength and moved towards the chassis where his son was interred. He turned off the stasis field, the metallic behemoth for the first time bearing the wait of time after so long.
He moved close to the chassis, his massive gene-engineered frame making him nearly as tall as the machine. He slid his hand over the metallic bulk, feeling the cold steel that housed his son… He looked at the name inscribed, his eyes reading it with a cold indifference and then, almost as if he had always known how this machine worked he clicked something.
After a few seconds of silence the heavy thumb of machinery filled the air, and he took a step back.
The first thing that came to life was the flashlights in the artificial torso, something painfully needed to a warrior such as this within the bowels of a vessel like the Nightfall.
Behind the Primarch, other dozens of chassis had been illuminated, other sons that had nearly died over the great crusade. Sons, terran or nostraman now kept in the same place.
The second thing to carve the air, to touch existence after its frozen existence was the immensely powerful array of guns that it bore. The twin linked lascannon sliding silently up, aimed directly at his chest. The claws on the other hand sliding to a ready position. He was prepared to fight him.
And then the voice speaker came through, then the tortured soul spoke, his tone metallic as Terran´s ancient dark mines.
"Is it time to destroy the Emperor´s foes?"
"No," was the cold answer he received.
The dreadnought took a time before finally speaking once more.
"Who are you?" He asked the Primarch.
"I am your sire."
There was an eerie silence then, as if the dreadnought was assessing the being before him, the truth in those words.
Then, like a mountain collapsing in on itself, he spoke.
"No." The word came like the grinding of stone, metal strained by barely contained fury. "My Primarch would never have woken me. He would never look at me without hate."
A fanged grin became visible in the Primarch´s mouth, and the tech adept was stuck marveling at the demi-god's presence and the fact that he had woken such a venerated machine spirit without any rituals.
"Your eyes are kind," the dreadnought spat audibly as he adjusted slightly his twin linked lascannon
"You are not my Primarch."
"Thule." Curze spoke evenly. "Do you still dream about your time during the Unification Wars?"
There was an awkward silence between them, only interrupted by the adept's audible awe. He took a few steps closer. "You fought in the unification wars?" He whispered to himself, though in truth his words were heard by the two others.
The dreadnought's answer was a single charge of his twin linked weapons aimed at the Primarch´s chest. It did not strike its intended target. Faster than the blink of an eye, the Primarch had stepped out of the blast, a microsecond before it even left the barrel.
With his hand the Primarch halted the movement of the titanic claw. Servos grinded, the engines of his frame thrum with difficulty
"Thule, you should know how useless that is." The Primarch spoke evenly, without anger, his fang still protruding out. "I am your Primarch, remember."
"No," he bellowed. "My Primarch hates us. He despises us, he spends us as if we did not matter." He tried to move his canon, aim at his primarch once more. He did nothing.
Just as he had halted and then grabbed the dreadnought claws, he grabbed the barrel of the cannon and halted its movement.
Somewhere through the exchange Thule had switched to gothic, halting the use of the tongue of his primarch´s world.
"You are right," Curze said, in gothic. "I hated you. Just as I hated my Terran sons."
The Primarch slowly began returning the dreadnought's weapons to their neutral position, his arms slick with sweat from the effort, mild as it was, without the aid of his armor.
"However, as I despised you and brought in those that hailed from my home, they have proven to be much worse than you." The lack of venom in the Primarch´s voice was just as strange as this admission. "I cared not to supervise my sons as thoroughly as I should, as you had thrived without my direction… I shouldn't have assumed that. I shouldn't have assumed many things, Thule."
By now the dreadnought stopped struggling. His weapon set once more neutral.
"You are not my Primarch. You are not the Lord Nighthaunter."
"What has happened here?" Suddenly a metallic voice interjected. As it did, the adept sent a string of binary to him.
"Magos, Leave." Said the Primarch quietly, without turning his gaze, his displeasure more than evident. Had he been human, Curze would have killed him just for his tone. And if he wasn't? Well, the Forge World could always spare another Magos for his vessel. After all, what mechanicum magos wouldn't wish to serve aboard a Glorianna-class vessel?
"Lord Primarch, by the Treaty of Olympos Mons we are incharge of caretaking and maintaining the Imperium's machines. We appreciate your ability to rouse such venerable machine spirits but-"
"LEAVE." The Primarch said, his presence suddenly surging like a storm. The few dim lights in the armory flickered, cracked, and died. Even the Dreadnought's searchlight stuttered, its beam unsteady for moments.
The Martian Magos, who had replaced most of the bodily parts by mechanical components as to be closer to his god, felt it. The darkness of his mind clouded, every instinct, machine driven or still born of flesh, in him telling him to run. It was as if his very soul was clouded in terror.
With a notoriously quick string of binary sent to the adept, instructing him to let the Lord of the vessel do as he pleased, both scurried was rare to see the Martian cult abandon their logic-driven process and cower before the one thing they could never escape, their lingering humanity, no matter how much flesh they replaced.
"Sire," Thule at last spoke, a few seconds after they had left. "Why have you woken me?"
"If I turned against my father… Would you follow me?"
There was a moment of confusion in the mind of Malthax Thule, a moment that dragged silently into seeming eternity, like the bare wind on dead plains, but then he laughed, bitterly, angrily, sorrowly, and that laughter was perhaps even more cruelly for his Primarch than any word he could have spoken.
"Aye, I still dream about Terra in my slumber. I still see myself marching, the emperor with his sword alot and the children of the night in the shadows, hidden from sight, aye, I still see it. But would the Lord Nighthaunter command me to fight against the Emperor, I wouldn't follow, though in this body I dont have much of a choice."
Curze didn't reply, but his cold obsidian eyes told everything. His face darkened with resignation.
"If the Lord Konrad Curze were to explain to me why, however… That… that may turn to something else."
His Terrans would follow, if Malthax, the very embodiment of all that they suffered, so would the rest without issue.
"When the time comes I will." Konrad said, his tone far too emotionless. "Sleep now." His hand reached for a metallic switch. He left the dreadnought to its slumber before reactivating the stasis field.
Finally we hit chapter twenty. The would be 100k words. (It seems i nearly broke that on the previous chapter).
I hope you all have enjoyed this so far. I have enjoyed reading every single of your comments you all have posted.
Still, you all must have noticed that this came slightly late. I apolegize for that, last week was annoying for me, had to deal with stuff, and i restarted class this week. On top of that it was hard to get rolling.
You all dont know but this was suposed to be remembrancer stuff, i just couldnt do it due to names. Me and inventing names dont mix well (if you havent noticed nearly every caracter in the story already exist in canon, and those that i dont name are usually minor enough i do not need to.
If you have sugestion for names for the remembrancers (names or more tbh) id be delighted to hear. Dont meme too much though, keep it somewhat serious.
I will try and resume my previous schedule of a chapter per week but i dont know how it will go, being honest. I dont have much to tell until Nikea, though i am sure i can find something. I just cant skip five years without anything. After all, for those more eagle eyed amongst you, must have noticed it took 18 chapters for us to get to Ullanor and that was also five years. (Blessed be a Primarchs mind and praise be Curzes own personality of self assessement)
Also, if i teased something i havent delivered yet pls tell me. More of me asking a favour out of you, i do have my notes but even I can slip up, and id like to have this as airtight as possible.
Also if you have theories on what im doing im all hears.
See you next time. and thank you for reading.