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.
FAITH AND WOE
Across the continental landmass that, in ages past, was known as Australia, the Ecclesiarchy holds unchallenged dominion. But faith mixed with obsession turns to fanaticism, providing fertile grounds for the seeds of heresy to grow, watered by a flow of self-righteousness. Surrounded by wealth, power, and adoration, the highest ranks of the Ecclesiarchy have been watched by the Inquisition since the dawn of the Imperium, and the Reign of Blood only deepened their distrust. But even the most watchful guardian can make mistakes, and now the very heart of the Adeptus Ministorum is threatened with corruption and ruin …
We see K'alith. K'alith the Prurient. K'alith whose cries as it made a Craftworld into a void-faring nightmare have haunted the visions of Farseers since the days of the Fall. The shaper of horrors, the twister of flesh and destinies.
We hear the heralds of the Dark Prince, speaking the foul creed of the Lapsarian Heresy. They believe our father is dead – that He has been dead for thousands of years. They believe the Angel should sit the Golden Throne, as the Emperor's rightful heir. They believe Horus betrayed the Emperor; they believe Sanguinius killed him to save the Imperium; they believe we and our brothers rewrote history to hide the truth of our ambition; they believe we vilified the Angel so that we could rule in his place.
They believe a lot of things. Many of them are self-contradictory. Theirs is faith in its most hideous form, where blind belief takes the form of violently rejecting anything that does not conform to your vision of the world around you. They need no Glamour to be deceived, for they reject reality itself. They look at the horde of monsters that descends to feast upon Terra's bones, and see a glorious host of shining angels bringing deliverance to the worthy and damnation to the unfaithful.
Sounds familiar, brother ? If you look closely enough, you might see the traces of the Covenant's influence.
We see the Sisters of Battle, the light of their piety cast in stark relief against the heretics and Neverborn around them. In them burns the fire of belief and conviction, shackled by discipline and duty. Even your sons could find no fault with their purity after they deposed the madman who deceived their founders into heresy. In this, brother, they are greater than our own nephews – for who among them succeeded in overthrowing their treacherous leader ?
We see the trillions of souls who embrace the Imperial Creed across the galaxy, in all its myriad variations. Even the least psychically gifted soul shared that tenuous connection to our father, or at least to who – or is it what ? - they believed our father was. Belief can shape the universe, brother.
That shaping can take many forms. The actions belief drives some to are but one. Our littlest brother sought to harness another, more direct yet esoteric way. But even he had doubts. After Vandire, the circle of serpents thought about aborting their experiment. It was Thor who convinced them otherwise. If a mortal soul could shine so bright, if the Imperium could yet produce such radiance without it being born from Him, then they believed there was still hope for their plan.
What will happen now that He is dead ? Not even He knew that. We will not lie to you and call our father's final thoughts a plan. In truth, brother, we are the inheritors of His final gamble.
Of all the theatres of the Angel War, it was perhaps within the continent-spanning Ecclesiarchal Palace that the true scope of the preparations that had led to it was clearest. The corpse of the false Saint Rodrigo Alexander had been but the latest of the seeds of Ruin that had been laid across the continent over the millennia. As the Exalted Keeper of Secrets K'alith rose within the Cathedral of the Immortal Emperor, the servants of Slaanesh and his Angel rose. As daemons, Laer and Tithed Ones descended from the Tear of Nightmares, the cultists who had embraced the blasphemous creed of the Lapsarian Heresy discarded their disguises and raised their unholy banners.
Born of the crystallized madness inspired by the Echoes of Blood, the Lapsarian Heresy had plagued the Imperium since the end of the Scouring. As the Imperium was purged of the traces of Guilliman's rebellion and the history of the Heresy was rewritten to prevent the collapse of the empire, the first signs of that vile cult were found on Holy Terra. Its members, driven to lunacy by the Echoes, believed in a different account of the Heresy, one that saw the Traitor Primarch Sanguinius as a martyred figure, and the rightful heir to the Emperor of Mankind. The exact details of how this false version of events had occurred varied from one cell of the cult to the next, with the Angel's divinity and righteousness being the only constant – along with a fierce hatred of all Legionaries from other gene-lines, who were said to have betrayed the Angel and imprisoned him into some infernal pit out of jealousy.
Over the millennia, hundreds of Inquisitors and untold thousands of Acolytes had fought to keep the Lapsarian Heresy – a name coined by one of the Ordos' first Interrogators, and which spread through the entire Inquisition – suppressed. But no matter how many purges were committed, how many times the heretical creed was crushed, it had always resurged. And as Light's End came, the true extant of the cult's penetration of Holy Terra was revealed.
Within the Ecclesiarchal Palace existed thousands of lesser orders, small communities of priests and monks that spent their entire lives in quiet contemplation of the God-Emperor's grace within secluded monasteries. They were sustained by regular deliveries of supplies, arranged by powerful patrons high up in the Ministorum's hierarchy, and only spoken of in public circles when one of their members produced some fascinating artwork or interpretation of a verse of the Imperial Creed.
As the Tear of Nightmares rent the skies, several of these monasteries threw their gates open. The things that stalked out little resembled monks : clad in hooded robes that concealed the worst of their alterations, they were grotesque mutants, their grey flesh crossed by scarlet veins, their eyes burning like coals within their hoods. Hidden behind their walls, their communities had been infiltrated by the Lapsarian Heresy, and vile rituals conducted in secrecy had planted seeds of corruption within their souls that now blossomed under the radiance of the Tear of Nightmares.
From the House of Revelations came scholars who had drunk deep of the secrets whispered at midnight, and now they revelled in the thrill of shouting blasphemous un-words that broke the ears and minds of those who heard them. The Brethren of Saint Cerise tore the innocent apart and gorged on their remains, their teeth scarlet with gore. The Followers of the Radiant Wreath let loose their pyromantic gifts, filling the air with the scent of burnt flesh. These and half a dozen lesser brotherhoods fell upon the masses of panicked pilgrims, and every drop of blood, every atrocity, brought the Warp a little closer.
Of the thousands of preachers who exhorted the masses to worship of the God-Emperor, hundreds were revealed to have been corrupted also. Great, walking organs that had loudly shouted holy hymns suddenly began to howl unholy symphonies of Ruin that drove those who heard them to madness. Self-proclaimed prophets of the Dark Prince were blessed with inhuman charisma, and their poisoned words pushed thousands of naive and ignorant souls into Slaanesh's embrace. Even when the monstrous, reptilian shapes of the Laer arrived, delivered from the heavens in bolts of teleportation energy, the Chaos priests held strong enough a sway over their damned flock that they willingly joined forces with the abominable xenos.
In preparation for the celebrations of the millennium's end, nearly every Order Militant of the Adepta Sororitas had sent representatives to Terra. They had been scattered across the planet to participate in the parades, but the bulk of their number was in the Ecclesiarchal Palace when Light's End came. After all, it was there that the convent-fortress of the Convent Prioris was located, the very heart of the Adepta – a holy ground to which all Sisters dreamt of making pilgrimage, even if few ever but glimpsed it from afar.
Tens of thousands of Sisters of Battle in full battle-gear suddenly found themselves thrown from what was supposed to be the most sacred instant of their lives into an impossible nightmare, where daemons stalked the Throneworld and each and every one of them felt a keen sense of loss within their souls, where their connection to Him on Earth had been. The vox was full of screams and static, yet news of the Ecclesiarch's death in Europa had somehow made it through, spreading further confusion and shock.
The Sisters' sense of grief and horror was only compounded further when it was revealed that not even their own ranks had been immune to the corruption of Chaos. The entire delegation of the Order of the Ebon Chalice was revealed to have been subverted, their devotion turned to the one they called the Angel. Beneath their helms, their faces were covered in patterns of scars that called upon the unholy powers of the Empyrean. Powders added to their flamers' reservoirs turned the flames into a myriad of sanity-searing colors, and their Penitent Engines – constructs whose nature had always seemed dubious to the rest of the Imperium – activated hidden functions and mechanisms that made each of them a walking blasphemy against the God-Emperor. Censers spread Warp-tainted drugs in clouds that caused madness and mutation in all who breathed them in.
The forces of Slaanesh converged on the Cathedral of the Immortal Emperor, drawn to the Exalted Keeper of Secrets who presided over the abominations taking place there. Daemons poured from the Cathedral's gate, wearing the sculptures of flesh crafted by K'alith from the unfortunates who had witnessed its incarnation.
But though the faith the Ecclesiarchy had championed during its entire existence was shaken, it was not broken. Living Saints manifested among the faithful, in greater numbers than anywhere else on Terra during the Angel War. With fire and lightning, they cast down the followers of Ruin they encountered, and rallied others to their banners.
At the Holy Synod, where the Cardinals of a thousand dioceses had gathered to celebrate the turning of the millennium, no less than three incarnations of the Emperor's might arose : one – Saint Amelia – from the Sisters of Battle that guarded the site, one – Saint Ash'quora – from the pilgrims that had journeyed through the galaxy to gaze upon the Ecclesiarchal Palace, and one – Saint Cernos – from the Cardinals themselves.
This trio did not rise unopposed. Even before Light's End, the lords of the Ministorum had been riven by strife : some of them had been forewarned of the Hydra's plan to help the Emperor cross the threshold of true godhood, while others had heard of Lorgar's return and dreaded the Aurelian's judgement. Theological concerns combined with fear for their mortal ambitions, each fuelling and justifying the other. Those Cardinals loyal to the Hydra had managed to keep things under control as the Primarchs journeyed to the Golden Throne, but all semblance of calm was gone from the Synod now that the apocalypse doom-prophets had warned of for ages was actually here.
Furthermore, the Cardinals had historically been fearful of the power of the Saints – doubts that had been cultivated by the Archenemy, which had orchestrated the rise of many false Saints in order to cast a shadow on those who genuinely bore a shard of the Emperor's might. The three Living Saints were met with accusations of sorcery and heresy by some of the Cardinals, and it was only after repelling a daemonic intrusion that the Living Saints were able to prove their sanctity.
By combining their prayers and those of the millions who had fled to the Synod for safety, the remaining Cardinals were able to secure the Holy Synod against the Slaaneshi daemons. The building had been built after the Reign of Blood at the behest of Sebastian Thor, to host the Synod and serve as a counter to the previously unopposed authority of the Ecclesiarch. In the Angel War, and with Ecclesiarch Slyst dead, it became an ad hoc command center from which the leaders of the Sororitas directed their counter-attack. As orders began to flow down the chain of command, those who had thought themselves lost found heart once more, and a blow that could have destroyed the Ministorum entire was reduced to merely crippling instead of lethal.
Of the three Living Saints, Ash'quora's eyes had been burned out by holy fire during his ascension – but he was far from blind. He could now see into the realm of the spiritual, and whispered to his ascended kin of the Archenemy's scheme. The Cathedral of the Immortal Emperor was the nexus of Warp energies in the Ecclesiarchal Palace, a blight of darkness that shrouded the light of the holy relics contained within, seeking to twist them to its own foul designs. If the faithful could reclaim the Cathedral and consecrate it as they had the Synod, then the power of Chaos over the region would be broken.
A decision was quickly made. Cernos, the Saintly Cardinal, would remain at the Synod, leading his peers into prayer, while Saints Amelia and Ash'quora would lead a strike force that would cut through the heretical hordes. They would rally all pockets of Imperial resistance they encountered on their way, and slay the leader of the incursion – the foul beast that defiled the Cathedral of the Immortal Emperor.
And so, for the first time since the Reign of Blood, war came to the Ecclesiarchal Palace. The host of the Ecclesiarchy sailed forth and met the Slaaneshi legions. Screams of madness were met with shouted liturgies, and claws and fangs with steel and fire. Drawn to the Living Saints leading the host like moths to a flame, the cultists and daemons threw themselves in the loyalists' path in the thousands. Every kilometer of their advance was paid for in lives.
Space Marines in scaled armor revealed themselves amidst the carnage, emerging from the shadows to join the Imperial advance. They were of the Twentieth Legion, activated by the initiation of the Damocles Protocol. Due to the importance of the Ecclesiarchy in the Alpha Legion's and the Second Cabal's plans, hundreds of Omegon's sons had been planted in secret places across the Ecclesiarchal Palace. The contingencies their minds had been loaded up with did not include that exact scenario – the death of the Emperor had been unthinkable even for the Alpha Legion – but preparations had been made for the possibility of a large-scale daemonic incursion, and all of them knew of the Living Saints.
The advance was reinforced further by an unexpected arrival the north. Omegon had dispatched two of the Chosen of Magnus to the Ecclesiarchal Palace : Kay Setti, a venerable Dreadnought and the oldest of the Crimson King's companions; and Solomon, whose mastery of the Fifteenth Legion's secrets made him a bane to daemonkind. Their transport had flown through the infernal swarms, barely protected by Solomon's power, and crash-landed ahead of the Imperial forces. Dreadnought and Librarian emerged from the wreckage, and the Saints dispatched some of their forces to help them join up.
On and on they went, driven by a sense of urgency all shared even if only a few understood its source. The longer K'alith remained in the Cathedral, the more powerful its desecration would make it. The faith that permeated the Ecclesiarchal Palace had been made fragile by the death of the Emperor, and not even the Living Saints knew what might happen if the Greater Daemon was not stopped.
In the middle of that anarchy, a single running Sister of Battle went unnoticed.
Luha was running. She had been running since she left the Cathedral of the Immortal Emperor, whose name now burned within her mind, inviting all manners of heretical thoughts.
This was her fault. She had done this. She had brought the monster who had caused all this horror and blasphemy to Holy Terra. She had – she had – she had -
Luha screamed. She lashed out at the madness around her with her flamer, with a chainsword she did not remember picking up from the corpse of another, worthier Sister. Daemons and heretics burned and bled, and struck back at her with mindless frenzy.
They didn't hit her. Every blow missed her or glanced over her armor. Once she might have thought such a thing the result of the Emperor's blessing. Now she knew otherwise. The providence that shielded her, that kept her from the martyr's death she craved, was of an altogether darker and viler nature.
She kept running and fighting, lost in a fog of horror and guilt, until voices pierced through the mist of madness. Voices that were familiar, shouting words that she knew. Luha blinked, dragged back to reality.
Adepta Sororitas Sisters flew in the air, battling leering daemons. On wings made of jet-packs and priceless antigravs, the Daughters of the Emperor rose to meet the descending daemons. Many fell back down, slain and cut to bloody pieces. But the Ecclesiarchy had orchestrated the gathering of tens of thousands of the Sisters' most faithful, and more kept rising, filling the skies with the sound of righteous battle.
The sight of it, beautiful and true, drew Luha from her terror and grief.
"Woe to the ones who lead the faithful astray," breathed Luha, pulling her chainsword out of the skull of a creature with purple skin, diamond teeth and eyes the color of madness. The words poured out between her lips, and she drew strength from the familiar litany. "Woe to the ones who trespass upon His dominion !" She shouted, the words an anchor to sanity in the midst of the heresy that surrounded her. "Woe to those who break His trust !"
"Woe !" roared the Sisters around her, a single voice speaking through hundreds of throats. "Woe !"
The march from the Synod to the Cathedral of the Immortal Emperor took hours, perhaps even days – time, like many things, was not functioning as it should across Sol after Light's End and the opening of the Tear of Nightmares.
The closer the Imperials came to the Cathedral, the more horrors they encountered. The followers of Chaos had breached the stasis fields holding the corrupted relics that had been smuggled into the Cathedral over the ages. The evils slumbering within them had been awakened by the surge of the Warp, and let loose upon the Ecclesiarchal Palace. Cultists and daemons of Slaanesh clustered around these icons of Ruin like flies drawn to a carcass, and the Imperial advance had to confront each of them in turn.
On the Steps of Penitence, Saint Amelia struck down the archbishop whose mortal flesh was used as a puppet by the daemonsword of the Haeloan Covenant's greatest hero, whose true loyalties were now revealed as his relic cut a bloody path through hundreds of terrified civilians. Generations of Inquisitors had wondered why the Haeloan Sector was so rife with heresy : the sight of the daemonsword would have answered their questions by unmasking the rot laid within its very foundations. The daemonsword was broken by the Living Saint's flaming blade, and the infernal essence within it extinguished.
With the fire pouring from his eyes, Ash'quora destroyed the reanimated remnants of the holy prophet Nicator, whose miracles had been the work of the daemon that the magus had bound within his own body and subjugated in order to deceive untold millions. So potent had been these bounds – which had been whispered into the prophet's ear in a dream by a golden figure holding a sword and a cup – that even his death hadn't freed the daemon, which had been unleashed by K'alith. Driven mad by its long imprisonment, the rotting daemonhost rampaged mindlessly, until its dried vessel was set ablaze by Ash'quora, and its diminished spirit granted the undeserved mercy of obliteration.
Nigh on three hundred Sisters were lost to the grotesque, gleaming golem that was formed of the vast collection of jewellery known as the Treasure of Golconda. The Treasure had been brought back to Terra as a gift to an Ecclesiarch who had lived over six thousand years before Light's End, and the outrageous tithes required to buy it had driven entire worlds to starvation, all to increase the prestige of their lord in the eyes of the Adeptus Ministorum. K'alith had taken these jewels, and infused them with the dying wishes of the millions who had starved to death for them, before unleashing the resulting creature upon the Ecclesiarchal Palace, laughing at the bloody beauty of its creation. Only when each of the thousands of jewels had been drenched in the blood of faithful Sisters did their curse abate, the maddened ire of the wraiths bound within appeased enough that the Saints leading the Imperial host could exorcise them.
After triumphing over these evils and many more, the Imperial force finally reached the Cathedral of the Immortal Emperor. By now, its ranks numbered in the thousands, from Sisters of Battle to Alpha Legionaries and pilgrims who had successfully defended themselves from the horrors surrounding them long enough to be rescued and added to the ranks. Contact had been made with the Convent Prioris, the headquarters of the Adepta on Holy Terra, and the abbesses had sent what warriors could be spared from the defense of their stronghold and the millions of innocents who had taken refuge within it.
They would need each and every one of these faithful souls, however, for the Cathedral's entrance was defended by one of the greatest champions of Slaanesh on Holy Terra : Malicia, the heretical Canoness of the Order of the Ebon Chalice.
The Chaos champion was accompanied by an honor guard of the worst of her corrupt Sisters, along with daemons and Laer warrior-forms. They had built something that was half fortress, half court, and the air trembled with screams of pain, ecstasy, and other sensations known to no sane mind. Shards of razor-sharp glass flew in the air of the plaza where pilgrims had gathered for untold generations, waiting for their chance to enter the Cathedral's thrice-blessed ground. Moving through the air with vicious intent, they were pieces of the great stained glass panel that had towered above the Cathedral's gate, and which had been shattered at Light's End, its representation of the Immortal Emperor ended and each shard imbued with malevolent Warp-light.
The heretic Canoness of the Ebon Chalice did not carry weapons, for she needed none.
Malicia's high rank had granted her passage to Terra without subjecting herself to the usual gene-screens and examinations. Her face, and most of her skin, had been hidden beneath heavy veils, with only her bare hands exposed, holding the heavy chalice of ruby-incrusted obsidian that was the symbol of her Order. That cup now laid at her feet upon a makeshift altar, overflowing with gore, while Malicia stood resplendent in all her glory, stripped of her veils, her body fully exposed to the baleful light of the Tear of Nightmares.
Two additional arms emerged from her slender waist, each holding a dagger dripping with blood, as did her two normal hands. A forked, scaled tail slithered around her feet, and a small, purple flame emerged from its extremity.
But the true horror was her head – or rather, where her head should be. Malicia, Canoness of the Ebon Chalice, was headless : her eyes, nose and mouth looked down at the approaching Imperials from the center of her naked chest. A pair of great curled horns rose from the sides of her non-existent neck, responsible for holding up the hood that had maintained the illusion of normalcy.
The sight of these her inspired dread in the heart of the Imperials who beheld them, and terrible questions in the minds of those with the wit to think in such a situation. Though a vast portion of the Ebon Chalice had been called to Holy Terra for the celebrations, and the Throneworld served as the headquarters of the Order, not all of the Sisters had come. What had happened to the hundreds that had been left behind, in the monasteries and chapels of the Order ? As their Order revealed its true allegiance, what fresh nightmares would be inflicted on unsuspecting worlds across the galaxy ?
Malicia screamed at the sight of the Imperials, and the unholy sound alone sent dozens of the faithful to the ground, clawing at their bleeding ears. But the rest went forth, straight into the gathering of monsters the heretical Canoness had mustered to her side. The air rippled as the psychic weight of the Imperials' prayers met that of the heretics' twisted faith.
A hundred acts of heroism and more were performed during that battle, yet all went unrecorded in the confusion and mayhem. On wings of fire, Amelia the Living Saint flew above the lines of battle, drawn to Malicia like a vengeful agent of the Emperor's Wrath. With burning blade, she duelled the slave of Chaos, and Malicia's poisoned words fell on deaf ears as her mutant mouth spouted Lapsarian Heresy drivel.
By the words of Solomon, the Neverborn were driven off. By the might of Kay, the Tithed Ones were granted peace. By the fire of Ash'quora, the sorceries of the Laer were broken. And by the hands of ten thousand faithful souls, the Lost and the Damned were vanquished.
The battle ended when Amelia broke through Malicia's guard, all but cleaving her in two and hurling her off her altar into the mass of fleeing cultists.
With Malicia defeated and the enemy broken, the loyalists charged toward the Cathedral. All of them could sense the malevolent power growing inside, and were determined to confront it as soon as possible. Not all of them could enter, for the Cathedral had become a dread place indeed, yet those who could hastened their steps, knowing even a single second may make all the difference.
So rushed was their advance, none of them noticed that the corpse of Malicia was nowhere to be found.
Inside the Cathedral, the Chosen of Magnus, the Living Saints and those of their followers whose will and faith were strong enough to brave the aura of psychic horror that filled the entrance, found a spectacle straight out of the Silver Palace, where the Dark Prince holds court over its minions in the Realms of Chaos. K'alith's defilement was almost complete, and when it was, the entire continental mass would need to be subjected to prolonged orbital bombardment to contain its heretical taint.
The pilgrims and priests who had been inside the Cathedral when K'alith had manifested still lived. Their flesh had been melted into grotesque sculptures, in which grew tumours that served as repugnant wombs for the Greater Daemon's less exalted kin. These malignant growths burst apart in a shower of ichor as the vessel inside reached maturation, unleashing a new abomination upon Holy Terra, its arrival celebrated by the unceasing choir of screams that emanated from the thousand mouths of the living sculptures. In the eyes of the Saints and the Thousand Sons, this nightmarish spectacle was more twisted still, for they could see the souls of K'alith's victims, still bound within their violated flesh.
They could see too the Empyric presence of the Cathedral, the concentrated faith of untold billions who had sacrificed everything but for a glimpse of the holy treasures within. A deep well of psychic energy had accumulated, kept from manifesting in the Materium by the Imperium's collective fear of the psyker and the iron will of the Master of Mankind. Now K'alith sought to pervert that power, to bend it to its will by covering it in psychic detritus.
Amidst that horror, the champions of the Imperium came face to face with the Exalted Greater Daemon of Slaanesh that was its architect. They raised their weapons, and prepared to fight.
And it was then that they started to die.
Sergeant Nero of the Alpha Legion was the first to perish. K'alith cut the veteran Space Marine apart in a single blow of the long whip it had fashioned from the fused spinal columns of its still-living victims.
An entire squad of Battle-Sisters of the Order of the Valourous Heart was next, their lives snuffed out in a wave of fire within which screamed the faces of the damned. Blackened bones and charred pieces of armor tumbled to the scorched floor, leaving behind the ghostly images of the Sisters' spirits, trapped in the Cathedral by the evil that had killed them.
K'alith stalked languidly toward the Imperials, black tongue running on its lips as it sneered down at them. At the front of the charge was Kay Setti, the Dreadnought's massive bulk only bringing him to half the size of the Exalted Greater Daemon.
"A corpse should not interfere in the affairs of the living, old one," the Neverborn lord said in a mocking tone. "Clinging to existence as you do is unsightly."
Bolt shells and las-bolts slammed into K'alith, but it didn't even seem to notice as it bore down on Kay Setti. The Dreadnought levelled his own weapons at the daemon, opening fire at point-blank range, yet there was still no effect. A corona of power covered the Greater Daemon, warding it against all attacks.
"I shall have to correct this !" laughed the Keeper of Secrets. One of its clawed limbs tore through the Dreadnought's adamantium shell, into the life-sustaining sarcophagus, and pulled the husk of a Legionary out.
For a few seconds, K'alith held the mortal remnant of Kay Setti above its horned head. Then, as the shocked son of Magnus finally grasped his situation, the claw closed, and two pieces of dead meat hit the floor. Just like that, a warrior who had fought for the Imperium for nigh on three thousand years was dead.
And still K'alith laughed.
"The Emperor is dead !" It crowed, and the awful truth of its words was like rusted nails dragged across the souls of those who had come to challenge it. "There is no one left to protect you now. All of your souls, all of your little empire, is ours for the taking !"
There was a great cry, full of defiance and fury, and Saint Amelia descended upon K'alith. In her hands she held her flaming sword, and her armor was haloed with golden light. Like an avenging angel, she struck, her sword imbued with the same power that had destroyed dozens of Neverborn on her way from the Synod.
But it wasn't enough.
The sound of a Living Saint's dying screams shook the very souls of the Imperials, and the sight of Amelia's corpse thrown to the ground like a rag doll sundered their morale. Among them, Luha saw all of this happen, and despaired. She looked around, searching for something – anything – that might put an end to this nightmare. And as she did so, her gaze met that of the surviving Chosen of Magnus.
In a single moment, understanding passed between the Sister and the Legionary. Solomon's knowledge of daemons alloyed with the unholy sights Luha had been witness to, and both of them realized why it was that she had survived, despite all her attempts at a martyr's death.
Despite all the preparations that had led to K'alith's manifestation on Holy Terra, the power of the Cathedral's relics remained more than powerful enough to prevent it from incarnating … but it had found a way around that limitation. Luha, a faithful daughter of the Emperor, served as the anchor for its presence, having helped summon it, however unwillingly. Through her, the Exalted Greater Daemon was shielded from the holy power that permeated the Cathedral, and able to defile it until all of it belonged to the Dark Prince of Chaos.
And with that revelation came the bitter knowledge of how it could be defeated. The daemon had made a mistake. It had let her escape, let her run out of the Cathedral so that it could enjoy her horror and despair – but in so doing, it had let her find Solomon, and the son of Magnus knew many, many things.
Her eyes fixed upon K'alith, Luha raised her sword. Somehow, the daemon felt her intent, and turned toward her, its monstrous visage briefly contorted into a grimace of shock. But before it could do anything to stop her, the Sister of the August Vigil brought the blade against her flesh – and, in one single motion, cut her own throat.
Blood – innocent blood, blessed blood, belonging to she who, through ritual and deceit, had become the unwilling anchor for the Exalted Daemon's summoning – poured out of the wound in torrents. Yet Luha remained standing, even as K'alith shrieked in outrage and sought to make its way toward her. Perhaps it wanted to renew her flesh with another dark miracle; perhaps it merely craved to drag her soul into the abyss.
Regardless of its intent, the Exalted Keeper of Secrets failed. Luha's heart beat once, twice – and then stopped. She died on her feet, and her last sight before her soul slipped from her body and toward her final destination was the dawning of the Cathedral's power, unleashed by the severing of K'alith's ritual tether.
The horrors K'alith had created to despoil the Cathedral's were obliterated in a burst of golden fire that left the Imperials mostly untouched, though some among them would never see anything else again. The tainted relics were burned to ash and less than ash, a raging inferno that engulfed the entire Cathedral of the Immortal Emperor. In a single moment, the balance of aetheric power in the Ecclesiarchal Palace shifted, with the slaves of Ruin put on the run.
As the radiance of the holy fire faded, the surviving Imperials with unburned eyes witnessed K'alith's rapidly dissolving form. The daemon's charred false-flesh laid before the corpse of Luha, whose expression in death was utterly peaceful. With one last, wordless shriek, the Keeper of Secrets finally lost its hold onto corporeality, and vanished.
"Who was this Sister ?" Ash'quora asked Solomon.
"A martyr," the son of Magnus sorrowfully replied.
AN : Grey Knights chapter is finally complete, and not a moment too soon. I have two weeks to finish the one after that. I think I can do it, but after that, there will be a pause in the weekly updates, I am afraid.
Or perhaps not. We will see.
There have been questions, both from Jaenera (and as always, thanks for beta-reading this) and from other readers, whether the defeated Exalted Keepers of Secrets are truly destroyed, like Sarthorael was on Terathalion, or merely banished. This is an important question, and one that will be answered later in the story - but to reveal the truth now would be a spoiler, I am afraid.
I have had the term "Lapsarian Heresy" stuck in my head for almost a year now, back when I was designing the different battlefields of the Angel War in my head. At the time, I had no idea what I was going to do with it - I just saw the word "Lapsarian" in Fallen London, and I knew I had to do something with it. Those who embrace the Lapsarian Heresy are caught in the Echoes of Blood, which carry a portion of the Angel's own madness and delusions. Like him, they are trapped in a version of the universe that is not true, and any proof that it is not real is ignored. This isn't like Azrael's own Tzeentchian curse : the Lord of Lies has no choice in his condition, whereas the Lapsarian heretics choose to embrace the lie rather than the truth.
Thanks you all for reading. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and that you will tell me what you thought of it.
Zahariel out.