“Imagine the Imperium of the future, a golden Utopia of enlightenment and progress, where the scientist and the philosopher are equal partners with the warrior in crafting a bounteous future. Now imagine the people of that glorious age looking back through the mists of time to this moment. Think what they will know and what they would make of this travesty. They would weep to know how close the flame of enlightenment had come to being snuffed out. The art and science of questioning everything is the source of all knowledge, and to abandon that will doom us to slow decay, an Imperium of darkness and ignorance, where those who dare to pursue knowledge, whatever the cost to themselves, are regarded with suspicion. That is not the Imperium I believe in. That is not the Imperium I wish to be part of.
“Knowledge is the food of the soul, and no knowledge can be thought of as wrong, so long as each seeker after truth is master of what he learns. Nothing worth knowing can be taught, it must be learned with the blood and sweat of experience, and there are no greater scholars of that ilk than the Thousand Sons. Even as we fight in the forefront of the Emperor’s Crusade we study the things others ignore, questing for knowledge in the places others fear to tread. There are no truths unknown, no secrets too hidden and no paths too labyrinthine for us to follow, for they lead us upwards to enlightenment.
“Hard-won knowledge is of no value unless it is put into practice. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do!”
Magnus smiled, and Ahriman saw he had won over great swathes watching him.
“With that in mind, I beg your indulgence a little longer,” said Magnus, “and a tale I will thee tell.”
“THERE IS AN ancient legend of Old Earth that speaks of three men of Aegina, who lived in a cave deep in the mountains,” said Magnus, with the warmth of a natural storyteller. Though he had heard this story before, Ahriman found himself captivated by Magnus’ voice, the natural charisma that loaded every commanding word.
“These men lived shut off from the light of the world and they would have lived in permanent darkness but for a small fire that burned in a circle of stones at the heart of the cave. They ate lichen that grew on the walls and drank cold water from an underground stream. They lived, but what they had was not living.
“Day after day, they sat around the fire, staring into the flickering embers and dancing flames, believing that its light was all the light in the world. The shadows made shapes and patterns on the walls, and this delighted them greatly. In their own way they were happy, moving from day to day without ever wondering what lay beyond their flickering circle of light.”
Magnus paused in his recital, allowing the audience to imagine the scene and picture the dancing shadows on the cave walls.
“But one day a mighty storm blew over the mountains, but so deep were the men that only the merest breath of it reached their cave. The fire danced in the wind and the men laughed to see new patterns on the wall. The wind died and they went back to contemplating the fire, much as they had always done.
“But one of the men got up and walked away from the fire, which surprised the other men greatly, and they bade him return to sit with them. This lone man shook his head, for he alone had a thirst to learn more of the wind. He followed it as it retreated from the cave, climbing steep cliffs, crossing chasms and negotiating many perils before he finally saw a faint haze of light ahead of him.
“He climbed out of the cave, emerging onto the side of the mountain, and looked up at the blazing sun. Its light blinded him and he fell to his knees, overcome by its beauty and warmth. He feared he had burnt out his eyes, but in a little while his vision returned, and he hesitantly looked around him. He had come out of the cave high on the mountain’s flank, and the world was spread out before him in all its glory: glittering green seas and endless fields of golden corn. He wept to see such things, distraught that he had wasted so many years in darkness, oblivious to the glory of the world around him, a world that had been there all along, but which his limited vision had denied him.”
The primarch stopped, looking up to the stars, and his rapt audience followed his gaze, as though picturing the blazing sun of his story.
“Can you imagine what it felt like?” asked Magnus, his voice wracked with emotion. “To have spent your entire life staring at a small fire and thinking it was the only light in the world, only to be then confronted by the sun? The man knew he had to tell his friends of this miraculous discovery and he made the journey back to the cave where the other men sat, still staring into the fire and smiling vacuously at the shadows on the wall. The man who had seen the sun looked at the place he had called home and saw it for the prison it truly was. He told the others what he had seen, but they were not interested in far-fetched tales of a burning eye in the sky – all they wanted to do was live their lives as they had always lived them. They called him mad and laughed at him, continuing to stare at the fire, as it was the only reality they knew.”
Ahriman had first heard this story as a Philosophus in the Corvidae Temple when Magnus had mentored him prior to facing the Dominus Liminus. He heard the same note of bitterness in the primarch’s voice that he had heard then, a precisely modulated pitch that conveyed the proper measure of anguish and frustration at the blindness of the men in the cave. How, Magnus’ tone said, could anyone turn away from such light once they knew of its existence?
“The man could not understand his friends’ reluctance to travel to the world above,” continued Magnus, “but he resolved that he would not take their refusal to come with him as an end to the matter. He would show them the light, no matter what, and if they would not come to the light, then he would bring it to them.
“So the man climbed back to the world of light and began to dig. He dug until he had widened the cave mouth. He dug for a hundred years, and then a hundred more, until he had dug away the top of the mountain. Then he dug downwards, a great pit in the heart of the mountain, until he broke through into the cave where his fellows sat around the fire.”
Magnus fell silent, his words trailing off, though Ahriman knew it was a theatrical pause rather than any real moment of introspection. Knowing how the story ended, Ahriman was not surprised Magnus had stopped here, In the original version of the tale, the man’s friends were so terrified by what they were shown that they killed the man and retreated deeper into the cave with their fire to live their lives in perpetual twilight.
The tale was an allegorical parable on the futility of sharing fundamental truths with those with too narrow perceptions of reality. By telling it selectively, Magnus had broken his covenant with the audience, but none of them would ever know. Instead, he continued his tale with fresh words woven from his imagination.
“The men were amazed at what he showed them, the light they had been missing for all their lives and the golden joy that could be theirs were they just brave enough to take his hand and follow him. One by one, they climbed from their dark cave and saw the truth of the world around them, all its wonders and all its beauty. They looked back at the dank, lightless cave they had called home and were horrified by how limited their understanding of the world had been. They heaped praise upon the man who had shown them the way to the light, and honoured him greatly, for the world and all its bounty was theirs to explore for evermore.”
Magnus let his new ending wash over the amphitheatre, and no member of the Theatrica Imperialis had given so commanding a performance. A rolling wave of applause erupted from the tiers, and Magnus smiled, the perfect blend of modestly and gratitude. Sanguinius and Fulgrim were on their feet, though Mortarion and the Death Guard remained as stoic as ever.
As pitch-perfect as Magnus’ delivery had been, Ahriman saw that not all of the audience were won over, though it was clear the case against Magnus and the Thousand Sons was no longer as cut and dried as his accusers had hoped.
Magnus raised his hands to quell the applause, as though abashed to be so acclaimed.
“The man knew he had to show his friends the
truth of the world around them,” he said, “and just as it was his duty to save his friends from their dull, sightless existence, it is our duty to do the same for humanity. The Thousand Sons alone of all the Legions have seen the light beyond the gates of the empyrean. That light will free us from the shackles of our mundane perceptions of reality and allow the human race to stand as masters of the galaxy. Just as the men around the fire needed to be shown the glorious future that lay within their grasp, so too does humanity. The knowledge the Thousand Sons are gathering will allow everyone to know what we know, to see as we see. Humanity needs to be led upwards with small steps, with their eyes gradually opened lest the light blind them. That is the ultimate goal of the Thousand Sons. Our future as a race is at stake. My friends, I urge you not to throw away this chance for enlightenment, for we are at a tipping point in the history of the Imperium. Think of the future and how this moment will be judged in the millennia to come.”
Magnus bowed to the cardinal points of the amphitheatre.
“Thank you for your attention,” he said. “That is all I have to say.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Heresy/The Librarians/Judgement
MAGNUS POURED HIMSELF some water, smiling as he paced the reception room beneath the amphitheatre. The Sekhmet stood to attention, each one sensing that this trial would soon be over. Ahriman’s head still ached and the pressure on his thoughts was making him uneasy, as though it would prove too much for his skull to contain.
With the end of Magnus’ performance, Malcador had called a recess to the proceedings. What had begun in betrayal and infamy had come to triumph, for few could fail to be moved by Magnus’ great oration.
“I will admit to some trepidation when the day’s events became clear to me,” said Magnus, handing a goblet of water to Ahriman. “But I feel confident I have swayed the doubters to our side. Mortarion is too fixed in stone ever to change, but Sanguinius and Fulgrim stand with us. That will count for a great deal.”
“It will, but many others are concealed behind their falsehoods. The masses are behind us, but the judgement could still go against us. I do not understand why we are even here, it is insulting!” spat Ahriman, throwing down his goblet.
“You need to calm yourself, Ahzek,” said Magnus. “There was no choice but to call this conclave. The fearful need reassurance that their voices are being heard. You saw that the Emperor did not want this. Believe me, I feel your anger, but you must keep it in check. It will not serve us here.”
“I know, but it galls me that our fate rests in the hands of such blinkered fools!”
“Be careful,” warned Magnus, moving to stand before him. “You will mind your words. You are as dear to me as any son, but I will not stand to hear insults upon my father’s wisdom. Give in to such impulses and you will only confirm everything they say about us.”
“I apologise, my lord,” said Ahriman, trying to will himself into the lower Enumerations, but the calm of the spheres eluded him. “I mean no disrespect, but it is hard to imagine that others cannot see what we see, and almost impossible to remember what it was like not to know the things we know.”
“The curse of assumed knowledge is a challenge all enlightened individuals face,” said Magnus, softening his tone. “We must remember that we once walked in their shoes and were blind to the truths of the universe. Even I knew nothing of the Great Ocean until my father revealed its glory to me.”
“No,” whispered Ahriman with sudden, instinctive clarity. “You already knew of it. When the Emperor showed you its wonders and dangers you feigned not to know, but you had already peered into its depths and seen them.”
Magnus was at his side in an instant, towering over him with his flesh and eye a seething crimson. Ahriman felt the searing heat of Magnus’ presence, realising that he had crossed a line without knowing it even existed. In that moment, he knew he understood very little about his primarch, and wished that every scrap of knowledge that had passed between them earlier could be washed away.
“Never say that again, ever,” said Magnus, his eye boring into him like a diamond drill.
Ahriman nodded, but behind Magnus’ anger was something else, a wordless fear of buried secrets returning to the light. Ahriman couldn’t see it, but he saw an image of the silver oakleaf cluster he wore on his shoulder-guard.
“Ohrmuzd? Throne, what did you do?” asked Ahriman, as a memory that did not belong to him threatened to surface in his mind. He saw a dreadful bargain, a pact sealed with something older and more monstrous than anything Ahriman could ever imagine.
“I did what I had to,” snapped Magnus, forestalling any further words. “That is all you need to know. Trust me, Ahzek, what was done was done for the right reasons.”
Ahriman wanted to believe that, he needed to believe it, but there was no disguising the vanity and obsession that lay behind the secret bargain. He sought to pierce the shrouds and veils of self-justification and perceive the dark secret that lay beyond, but Magnus plucked the stolen memory from his mind.
“What was it?” demanded Ahriman. “Tell me. What are you hiding from us?”
“Nothing you need know about,” said Magnus, flushed and on the verge of… On the verge of what? Anger? Guilt?
“You have no idea,” he continued. “You can’t know what it was like. The degradation of the gene-seed was too extreme and the corruption in the damaged helices was too complex and mutating too quickly to stabilise. It was… It was…”
“It was what?” asked Ahriman when Magnus didn’t continue.
“The future,” whispered Magnus, his complexion ashen. “I see it. It’s here. It’s…”
Magnus never finished his sentence.
Like the mightiest tree in the forest felled by a single blow, the Primarch of the Thousand Sons dropped to his knees.
As Magnus fell, Ahriman saw a storm of amber fire raging in his eye.
LIGHT FILLED HIS vision, fireflies that burst briefly to life and then vanished.
Magnus opened his eyes to see sparks flying as stone chipped stone, and primitive smithing tools shaped a blade of napped flint. He saw the sword take shape, the workmanship little better than that of the pre-Neanderthal civilisations of Old Earth. Yet this was no human artifice, and this craftsmanship was sophisticated and undoubtedly alien. The proportions of the blade and grip were subtly wrong, the hands that fashioned them blue black and downy with a fine comb of russet hair.
Nor was this a normal blade, it was sentient. The word didn’t fit, but it was the most appropriate one Magnus could find. It was forged by alien metallurgists in ways too inhuman to be understood, imbued with the power of the fates.
It was a nemesis weapon, crafted to slay without mercy.
Magnus recoiled from the blade, horrified that an intelligent race would dare craft such a dreadful tool of destruction. What reason could there be to bring such a vile thing into being?
Was this the future or the past? It was impossible to tell with any certainty. Here in the Great Ocean (for where else could he be?) time was a meaningless framework that gave mortal lives a veneer of meaning. This was a realm of immortals, for nothing could ever really live or die here.
Energy was eternal, and as one form ended, another rose in a never-ending cycle of change.
No sooner had he considered the question of past and future than the image splintered into a million shards, spinning in the darkness like a microscopically magnified view of an exploding diamond.
Magnus had ventured deeper into the Great Ocean than anyone other than the Emperor, and he had no fear of his surroundings, only an insatiable desire to know the truth of what he was seeing. Spiteful laughter, like that of a hidden observer, wove around him with the ethereal echoes of a long-departed jester. From its resonances, a chamber resolved out of the darkness, a fire-blackened place of reeking evil and blood.
Arterial spray looped over the walls, and patterns of acrid quicklime on the floor stung his nostrils. Figures moved in the d
arkness, ghostly and too faint to make out. Magnus reached out to a figure garbed in armour the colour of quarried stone, but the vision faded before he could see more than the tattoos covering the warrior’s scalp.
His odyssey continued, and Magnus allowed himself to be borne upon the rolling tides of the Great Ocean. Briefly, he wondered what had become of his corporeal body, for he knew he had not deliberately loosed his body of light from his flesh. That this had come upon him without warning was unusual, but fear would only make any phantom hazards more tangible.
He saw worlds on fire, worlds wracked with endless battles and entire systems ablaze with the plague of war. This was a vision of things that could never be, for these worlds were battlegrounds of Astartes, slaughterhouses where brother warriors who had marched from Terra to the edges of known space tore at each other with blades and fists. As distasteful as such visions were, Magnus did not let them affect him. The Great Ocean was a place where anything was possible and its capricious tides ever sought to unseat a traveller’s equilibrium.
The abominable stench of the charnel house rose in an overpowering wave, a potent cocktail of rotting organic matter and escaping corpse gasses. Magnus felt his gaze drawn to a forsaken world, a world once verdant and fecund, but which had fallen to disease and corruption. He saw it had not gone without a fight, its landscape bearing the scars of the war waged to subdue it. The battle had been fought on the microscopic level, the armies of bacteria and virus numbering in their trillions.
Every living thing on this world was now a factory for disease, where aggressive microbes bent their mindless wills towards reproduction and spreading their infection further.
The planet’s ending had never been in doubt, but it could no more surrender to its fate than the corruption could stop its destructive assault. It had become a world of stagnation, its marshes and forests turgid oceans of filth and oozing pestilence.
Magnus saw a rearing mass of metal in the heart of a swamp, the rusted hulk of a starship that rose like an iron cliff or an ocean-going vessel sinking to its doom. Putrescent things made their homes in its rusted superstructure, and something monstrous made its lair in its dead heart. Magnus had no clue what that might be, but saw the glitter sheen of metal and knew that the nemesis blade of the alien craftsman had found its way here.