Day 68
Uirus was adrift in the void. He looked out and saw stars, tiny eyes staring back at him, studying him. They flickered, like rapid blinks. He wasn't sure why or how and he didn't much care either.
He was tired, tired to his very bones in a way that he hadn't since he'd been a mortal and even then, he could barely remember a time where he felt so exhausted. Then again, it could be considered the primary lesson he had learned from the past few weeks that he was still mortal. He was larger, stronger, faster, more durable than the vast majority of humans… But death still hounded his every step. He could still die. He would still die, in time, unless Tzeentch or some other god decided he was worthy of becoming a daemon prince or decided to punish him for whatever reason.
So, why did they call unenhanced humans mortals? It was a part of his Legion's culture he'd never really explored. The other Legions did it too. As did the Adeptus Astartes.
It was arrogance, probably. A belief in their own inherent superiority that led them to decry the non-augmented as lesser, inferior to their own semi-divinity.
His brothers had been guides once. In the old days, long before he'd joined their ranks, when the Great Crusade had spread out across the stars, reaching out to grasp world after world and bring them into the Imperium. The Thousand Sons had shown others how to harness the gifts of the Great Ocean, how to use it safely. At least, they'd thought it was safe.
The veterans of the Long War spoke about it, sometimes, when they could be offered something for the knowledge or were simply in a nostalgic mood. They did not often speak of the epic battles that spanned the galaxy and made whole sectors burn. They rarely spoke of the Primarchs, striding into battle like demigods of war, taking on whole armies singlehandedly. They certainly never spoke of the greater secrets they knew of, not to someone like him. Instead, what they spoke about most often, more often than he suspected even they realized… were the little things.
"Ahriman once wanted to grow a vineyard for making wine after the war. Can you imagine that?"
"Phael Toron – he was the captain of the seventh fellowship – was always the cautious sort too. Didn't like using any of the artifacts we brought back. Might have survived if he had."
"Aqhet Hakoris was one of the first of us to discover daemons existed in the Warp. If I recall correctly, he ended up being one of the first of us to be devoured by one too."
His Legion longed for the days before the Heresy, more than they knew themselves. Even he longed for it. All the Astartes did, he suspected, in one way or another, at least the ones capable of coherent thought. The want to be part of something greater was inside their geneseed and there had been nothing greater than the Imperium at its height. Perhaps not to serve under the Emperor again, perhaps not even to fight for the Imperium itself again, diseased as it is and, maybe, always was. But Uirus knew that for all their hatred for the Imperium and its horror… His Legion was hardly better than it.
What true difference between them was there? They treated humans as expendable pawns, if they even recognized them as pieces on the game at all rather that simply detritus or animals that could be herded and coerced into action when needed. They worshipped a corpse on a golden throne, kept alive, if that could be called living, by an endless supply of those gifted with the talent to wield the Great Ocean. His Legion, all the Legions of Chaos, fed the gods with their acts of devotion and cruelty. Were the gods any better?
Some in the Thousand Sons might call that thought blasphemous. The gods promised freedom from a doomed existence, but there was no salvation there.
Reality seemed to shake, rumbling with a strange sound. It took him a moment to realize he had heard a similar sound before, from one of the few dreadnaughts of his legion that had not been twisted into a helbrute. He too had been a veteran of the Long War, kept in chains on the Planet of the Sorcerers, eternally awake for all the long thousands of years and thoroughly mad, usually taking to insane ramblings of doom and, occasionally, more lucid scorn of his own Legion for their supposed betrayal. Uirus had spoken with him only once. He didn't recall the conversation's details, though he suspected he had asked the venerable one for stories of the Long War. The dreadnaught had made a noise of static and metal grinding against metal in a cacophony that he had later learned… was laughter.
He heard a similar noise now, and though it lacked the crude modulation of the dreadnaught, it was no less inhuman. He saw the stars shine bright and he saw amusement in them, once more reminded of eyes staring at him. He felt something around him, like water rushing past as something titanic moved about in it, and he noticed his armor was missing and he was dressed in a plain white toga.
This was not space, he realized. He was not adrift in the void, at least not the void he was familiar with. Nor was he in the Great Ocean, as he would know it if he were. Nor was this anything like what he had heard the Webway to be. Nonetheless, he could feel something was out there, watching him. Some large in ways he couldn't fully understand, like encountering a daemon… or a god.
I am an altogether different kind of parasite.
The voice sent tremors through him. The stars shone brighter and they formed a pair of eyes that stared down upon him, though it was difficult to say whether it was in amusement, judgement, or some combination of the two. He could feel the weight of its gaze, in his mind and upon his soul, and it felt like looking upon an encroaching storm, with not even a thatch roof to defend himself.
When he had that thought, reality shifted and he found himself standing on the edge of a stark cliff, overlooking an ocean with black depths. He could smell the ocean mixed with ozone and the wind howled in his ears. He looked out and saw dark clouds moving towards him, lit up by flashes of lightning. Something creaked behind him and he turned to see a xenos of unfamiliar origins. It was tall, easily twice his height, and looked to be made out of wood that had been burned to charcoal, rent asunder and bleeding a red sap in places. Onyx gemstones were embedded in its face, which was featureless beyond a crown of burned branches that glowed with dying embers. There were four gemstones, each as inscrutable as the star-eyes had been.
"Hello, Uirus of the Thousand Sons," The burned tree-xeno said. Its voice was more focused than the void's had been, but no less strange.
He tried to reach out with his psychic senses, but found no purchase, as if there was nothing before him. Yet, there certainly was something in front of him. Something powerful that had wrapped itself in a form less than what it was.
"Not less," The xeno corrected his thought. "Simply… different. More suitable for conversations."
Uirus found his voice then. "What… do you want from me?"
" 'From you?' " The charcoal head tilted to the side and he thought it might look like a skull stabbed by many spears. "Nothing. You have nothing to offer me."
He felt a shiver of fear. He'd hoped, perhaps, he might be able to cut a deal. He had denied the daemons from before because he'd thought he would die and be free, yet that was not the case now. He was in the power of this daemon and whoever it served. Perhaps it served one of the gods, but it had claimed itself to be different. In that case, one of the many unaligned Neverborn that had been flocking to this world's location in the Warp?
"You're off the mark," The xeno said. It seemed to find some amusement in his struggle to determine who he was facing. "You have already encountered me before, though we did not speak then."
His eyes widened as his mind finally connected the dots, staring up at the four eyes of the giant.
"The Malum entity," He breathed.
"I prefer 'Tide', but call me what you like," The xeno said. It sat down on the ground, crossing its legs like a child might, but its height was such that it still looked down at Uirus. "I am sorry for ruining your death."
The xenos, if it even could truly be called a xenos, tilted its head then, as if considering something, the movement sending creaks through the wood.
"Actually… No. I am not sorry. In fact, I think I care very little if you are upset or not."
Uirus stared at the thing. It patted a patch of ground next to it, indicating for him to sit.
It could make him sit, he realized. This place, whatever it was, clearly obeyed this entity, this 'Tide', if they weren't simply one and the same. If he refused it…
"Do you think I'm so petty I'd tear your soul apart for not taking a seat?" Tide asked, tilting its head again. This time, the noise was like the cracking of firewood, almost like a human popping their neck. "Stand, if you like. I am going to sit."
"What… what do you want?" Uirus asked, shortening his question. The four gemstone-eyes stared at him, unblinking. He thought he might have seen fire inside of them, but it could have been a trick of the light. He realized there was no sun in this place, that the light simply existed without a source.
For a while, the entity just sat there, looking at him, silent. He almost thought it wouldn't answer.
"Peace," It said finally. However, that word was not the only one it spoke, not the only one Uirus felt slip inside his mind. Kinship, Life, Safety, Hope, all these things and more flashed through his mind. They were one and the same, at least to this being. The concepts were strange and familiar all at once.
Uirus felt dizzy, though the world did not spin, his vision did not swim. Perhaps it was his Astartes biology, perhaps it was this place. It had been centuries since he'd last felt nauseous, not since before his transformation.
He shook his head. In times of great stress, fall back on what he knew. He was being influenced by this creature, he suspected. While the Thousand Sons often taught that it was important to learn as much as one could, it was equally important to remain oneself. He summoned up his hatred for that which was other, perhaps less fiery than that of a Loyalist, but still potent, fixing the creature before him with a glare.
"I will not succumb to whatever… this is," He hissed, jutting his jaw out proudly. He may have faltered before, but now he was resolute. Yet, the entity just rumbled with laughter.
"You might," It said and he got the feeling it was smiling in amusement at him even though it lacked the mouth with which to do so. "This, however? This you most certainly will succumb to."
He glowered at it as it stood, towering over him once again. He prepared for an attack, whether physical or mental, but nothing could prepare him for the pain that drove him to his knees. He was more attuned to his soul than most and he could feel it being attacked, ripped apart.
"S-stop," He managed through teeth clenched so tight they should have cracked, trying to sound commanding but managing only to beg. Yet, the feeling continued, even though the creature was seemingly doing nothing. He felt another chunk of his soul be torn away and he collapsed onto the ground, writhing in silent pain.
Finally, with the third burst of pain, his mouth opened in a shriek of agony.
Caleb wasn't sure how he was still alive. He'd gotten lucky, when that giant ice monster had entered the reactor room, he'd been near a sub-chamber off the main one, a storage closet for cleaning supplies he had discovered. He'd curled up into a ball there and waited, tapping out nervously the beat his mother had taught him as though that might save him from the monstrous giant outside.
Then… something had happened. The whole ship had begun to shake with the feeling of imminent Warp transit, but that was impossible with them so far inside the system's gravity well, not to mention being crashed. He'd heard an explosion that had nearly deafened him from outside, but he hadn't dared to look, despite what the whispers encouraged him to do, despite the offers they made that chilled him to his bones.
Now, however, he did look. Because beyond the screams of the monsters and the mechanical clanking and skittering of the mechanical horrors outside, beyond the crackling of ice and the thrum of overloading generators, he heard something else. It was a soft sound, yet it cut through the chaos of all that was happening. It had started out weak, but it now silenced the whispers in his ears and he could hear it more clearly.
Someone was singing.
He had never heard anything like it. He couldn't make out the words, but the voice was sweeter than any he had known before and made goosebumps crawl along his skin from its beauty.
He cracked the door open and looked at the horrors outside. He saw the monsters clashing with one another, now joined by brutish mechanical warriors, like miniature Astartes wielding swords and lascannons, but none seemed aware of the singing. They fought endlessly, viciously, and it made his eyes hurt to even gaze at their twisted forms.
He looked away to save himself from the pain and found him staring at the generator, which glowed white with energy and should have burned his eyes, but he felt no pain. Warp energies roiled around it, crackling with power as a rift was being torn open and the Immaterium leaked into the Materium. The daemons became more solid, their mechanical kin gaining further power as well, while the ice creatures grew larger and stronger as they seemed to feed off each of their kills.
And all the while, he could hear the singing gaining strength as well. He could almost make out the words now and the images they sent through his mind were of a river of water, running through a forest of trees that grew tall on its banks. He wasn't sure how he knew these things, as he had never seen such sights before in all his life, but he did.
The song was sweet, a choir of one and many, but it had a sorrowful tone to it. Pity ran along its notes like the rippling of water and he could hear crying along with the gale of the winds. He could hear the beating of drums made from animal hide stretched over wood underlaying it, a specific rhythm to go along with the singing. He barely even noticed the ice creatures retreat soon after that, fleeing the vessel, so enraptured was he by the sight and sound of what could no longer be called a generator as the Warp Rift consumed it.
Suddenly, the battle halted. The daemons turned around and shrieked, their forms flickering as they tried to flee back into the Warp, but something held them there, like a cage. The hell-machines cried out with static and scrap code, some firing their weapons into the source of the light, but this accomplished nothing, their Warp-infused shells and energy beams diffusing harmlessly before the light. He could see the makings of a teleport's light forming around them only for it to be scattered away by unknowable power with the crack of backlash. Even the false-Astartes paused in their attack, seemingly taken aback.
He saw something in that light. He could not make out what it was, his brain simply refusing to understand what he saw for the sake of his own sanity. It was shrouded, cloaked in concepts, thoughts, and… and daemons. Dead daemons, given a semblance of life by its power, using the corpses to hide its vastness like some grotesque and eldritch camouflage. Not quite a god… but something else born of the Warp. A predator. No… A hunter.
He squeezed his eyes shut, though for what reason he could not say.
When he opened them again, he was elsewhere.
He was laid against the trunk of a tree and felt grass under him for the first time in his life. He breathed in air that had never been recycled and found it was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted. He looked around him and he saw a dozen or so others, each he recognized as cultists or other serfs from the Gallow's Eye. And, seemingly unconscious, resting against another tree, was Lord Ahsael… and the Rubric Marine, dust neatly gathered inside the remnants of its armor, which were stacked nearby.
The others, save Ahsael, jerked awake, holding their heads or other wounds. Some tried to stand, but fell back to the ground with groans. Some looked over at him and froze for a reason he couldn't understand.
Then, the tree he was resting against shifted, stepping back. He felt onto his back, leaving him looking up at a xenos merely with the form of a tree, staring down at him with four, gemstone-like eyes.
"Uh… hello?"
