Day 13
Tide reveled in the growing size of his biomass. The Genestealer attack had not only served to deliver him the knowledge of the Mechanicus, but also to have his Altered PDF bypass the quarantine restrictions to carry and spread his spores throughout almost the entirety of the hive city, ostensibly in the name of repelling the attack. Malum's population, over thirty billion men, women, and children, were almost entirely under his influence now. With their lives, came their deaths as well.
The day of the Genestealer attack, he'd gained well over seven hundred and fifty thousand bodies. That was without taking from those actually killed by the attack, who he had not touched. This day, he had gained over one and a half million.
He'd diverted around half of his harvest to adding to his Gravemind, multiplying the total biomass by nearly eight times what it had been only two days ago, easily passing the mark of a million minds. The rest were divided between Puppets, Combat Forms, and raw biomass used for the creation of Pure Forms.
While he could have created more Sangheili puppets, he diverted most of the biomass for the moment to create human Puppets. He had well over a million of them now, the equivalent of two regiments of PDF or Guardsmen. Half of those were spread throughout the city above, acting as his eyes, ears, and hands. The other half he kept in the Underhive, assisting the rest of his forms in preparing the factories.
They would be the first to receive weapons and equipment, he had decided. The PDF, for all the advantages he had tried to stack in their favor when they'd counterattacked the Genestealers, had taken more than a few losses. Having a force of soldiers that appeared human and he could expend guiltlessly would be very useful now that there was a war on.
The nobility in charge of Malum that he had finally gotten access to were apparently quite displeased with the Inquisitor and the quarantine. He could probably do something with that in the future, but for the moment he'd try and tamp down on any rebellious urges they might have.
It was as he was considering some of the future possibilities that… it happened.
"You've done what I asked?" Ellen asked. She resisted the urge to tap her foot, settling with crossing her arms.
She stood in a small room, only half-a-dozen meters wide in any direction with a low hanging ceiling. In front of her was a large window that covered the bulk of the wall. It was made with one-way glass and looked in on an adjacent room that was just as sparse in décor, having only a single, large rack in its center and a small table. Held in that rack with restrained limbs was one of Vidriov's many test subjects, kept under medical stupor, a breathing filter attached to his face.
"Four kinds of gas may be released into the room as you desire," Vidriov said from his place next to her. A small team of his subordinate Genetors were busy fiddling with a number of scanners and various other pieces of technology that lined the viewing chamber. "An anesthetic that will induce a temporary sleep of a few hours, one that is strong enough to induce an indefinite coma until resuscitation is desired, one that will melt any organic matter it comes into contact with, and finally one that will ignite on contact with the air and cleanse the chamber."
"Good," Ellen said simply before activating her commbead. "Purilla… Go ahead."
The door to the chamber opened, the psyker emerging. She too wore a breathing filter. She walked around the rack, studying the man from a distance for a moment, as though hesitant to get close, but Ellen knew she was simply rechecking the psychic presence of the man for anything unusual or out of place. Ellen had been quite clear that, if she sensed anything even slightly wrong, she should depart immediately.
After nearly a minute of just circling the resting man, she finally came to a stop in front of him. Gingerly, Purilla hooked her fingers beneath the sleeves of her arm-length gloves, drawing them down and revealing the unnaturally pale flesh beneath them. She carefully placed the gloves on the table, folding them neatly along their length.
She approached the man and held up both hands, reaching out as if to cradle his head in her hands. Ellen realized she was holding her breath and forced air to circulate through her, just as Purilla's index and middle fingers lightly pressed into the sleeping man's temples.
"You've done what I asked?" Ahsael asked. He resisted the urge to tap his foot, settling with crossing his arms.
He stood in his private chambers, impatient. Vra'kzil chirped in soft laughter, as though the raven found this whole thing amusing. The cultist, Ahsael didn't care to know his name, bowed low, gesturing to the doors that swung open. Another pair of cultists arrived, dragging the limp form of a man in a PDF uniform, whose face was hidden beneath a burlap mask.
"Finally," Ahsael said, grinning as he turned towards the prisoner. Vra'kzil chirped again, this time almost mocking in its tone, and Ahsael's grin became a scowl. "I do not care. The xenos moved in ways we have not seen before for a reason. Are you not interested in learning why?"
The raven chirped again, its feathers rustling with the sound of whispering voices.
"Leave us," Ahsael snapped at the cultists and they all but fled in terror from his presence, leaving the prisoner crumpled on the ground. The Sorcerer turned his attention back to the precocious bird sitting on his pauldron. "I am not 'afraid'. Knowledge is power and secrets are dangerous. I would be a fool to not try and discover why the xenos act so strangely."
The raven's eyes glinted maliciously, going from Ahsael to the prisoner and back again.
"If he does not, we will find someone else," Ahsael stated. "And if they do not, we will continue to interrogate those who may know something until we find the answers I seek. Do not pretend you are not pleased with this work. His soul is yours to feast upon, after all."
The raven threw back its head, its beak wide with chirping laughter that echoed through the chambers.
"Yes, yes," Ahsael said, already exasperated. "Him and those three who brought him, if you wish."
The raven gave a short, mocking chirp before jumping off his pauldron, its wings splaying out wide with the sound of old, rustling paper, and it glided down to the imprisoned mortal, landing atop the man's chest. Its silver claws flashed and the burlap sack was suddenly nothing but ribbons tainted red with the blood of the unoncious man, leaving long scratch marks across his face. The man was quite out of it, not even flinching at the pain of his face being slashed open. Vra'kzil's tongue, which was longer than any raven's could be and forked at the tip, darted out and cleaned its claws of the crimson fluid.
"Just get on with it, wouldn't you?" Ahsael said and Vra'kzil gave a sidelong glance back at him.
Slowly, Vra'kzil lowered its beak to the man's forehead, hovering right above the bridge of his nose. Its eyes shone with brilliance for a moment and its silver beak seemed to shimmer with blue flames. The beak then lowered further, just far enough that it pierced flesh, but not bone. It moved its beak this way and that with care and precision, carving runes up and down the man's skull, blood staining its beak and feathers as it worked.
Once the man's head was covered in runes, Vra'kzil drew back a short hop, admiring it work. Before Ahsael could speak again, it suddenly threw out its wings wide and gave a loud, ear-splitting cry in a tongue only Sorcerers could understand. The room was filled with silver and blue light that burned Ahsael's eyes and forced him to look away for a moment.
When he turned his head back, Vra'kzil could no longer be seen with mundane sight and the symbols carved into the man's skull glowed softly.
Purilla felt the tips of her index and middle fingers press against the man's head, felt her mind slip its mooring in her body to travel down along the length of her arms, through her fingers, and into the man's head. It was a familiar process, one she had done countless times before. Her psychic abilities were different from most others. Normally, she'd have been killed for such a variation, but Ellen had seen the value in her special power and had brought her into her employ what felt like a lifetime ago.
She saw the man's mind, saw everything that he was and ever had been. His memories flashed past her eyes, his life, his joy, his pain.
He'd been scared when he'd been taken, but had become only confused in recent days as, while he didn't understand what was being done to him, he also hadn't really noticed anything actually changing. There were also wide gaps in his memories in the past few days. Vidriov had been keeping him and the others sedated.
She pressed further and saw more. He'd been a laborer, like most on this planet, before he'd been accused and convicted of stealing rations. He hadn't been, but the Arbites had taken him anyways. Ironically, his life as a prisoner had not been that different from his life as a civilian, just laboring in another factory. Until Vidriov had selected him for this experiment, that is. It was unfortunate, but Purilla knew that such things happened.
She went on and scoured through his life, searching for anything out of place, anything unusual, but found nothing. And yet… And yet she felt like there was something more, something she was missing.
She pressed further and further into his mind, into the core of who he was, but she didn't find anything strange. Yet the feeling persisted and Purilla had learned to listen to her feelings as a psyker, though not to always trust them.
She found nothing within his memories that suggested anything strange.
That was where she should have stopped. It was where Ellen had told her to stop. A simple reading of the mind was all that was required. But Purilla needed to find something. This organism or infection, whatever it was, had been drawing more and more of Ellen's attention and Purilla knew the Inquisitor needed to be focused on the larger picture. Purilla needed to find out whether there really was anything wrong with this thing.
She knew of Ellen's countermeasures, had even suggested the two capable of killing her in case something went wrong. She knew the risk she was about to take was drastic and it was entirely possible that Ellen would see her executed for disobedience. But if her sacrifice could help Ellen, help the Imperium… Purilla would gladly give up her life and risk her very soul.
Once more, there was a feeling of disconnection. Purilla felt her mind enter the Warp with no more than a ripple, careful to not reveal her presence to any predators that might be prowling around. The stray thought shaped her view of the Immaterium. It was a great ocean of infinite depths and she knew she could not delve beneath its waves or linger too long even above them. In the distance, the storm took the form of dark thunderclouds that flashed with lightning colored red, blue, green and pink, churning the ocean beneath it.
The man's soul had been drawn here with her. It was like a small light compared to her blaze and she knew it might be swept away by the waves if she let it be. It took the form of a candle, one that she held close and guarded. None deserved to lose their soul to the mercy of the Warp and its horrid denizens.
To enter the Warp like this was risky even under ideal circumstances. To enter while a Warp Storm raged around her almost guaranteed her doom She had prepared wards to guard herself before even entering the room with her examinee, knowing that she might need to do this, but they would only be strong enough to fend off even a weaker daemon for mere moments. Her best method of survival was to draw as little attention to herself as she possibly could and make her stay here quick.
She took the candle in her hands and looked for any signs of corruption. Such things could appear in an infinite myriad of ways due to how the mind could interpret the Warp, but she would know it if she saw it.
Yet, there was nothing. No blemishes upon the candle, no cracks in its wax or tints to its flame. She saw nothing and she was about to depart, to return to the Materium, when she felt her hand brush something.
A spider thread, a single strand. Imperceptible to sight, even in this place, yet noticeable if you contacted it.
And when her hand brushed against it, she finally saw something.
The Ocean shifted and changed. Suddenly, she stood in the middle of a vast desert, a place not unlike the burning lands. In the distance, the thunderclouds had been replaced by sandstorms that formed cruel, laughing faces more monstrous than any creature of the Materium. Yet, her focus was below her, at her feet, where a yawning chasm had opened, its depths imperceptible despite the brightness of the land around her.
No, not opened. It had always been there; she just hadn't been able to see it before. She was holding the spider thread between her fingers and knew it was connected to whatever was inside.
And Purilla saw someone else as well, also holding a candle-like soul and its thread, looking down into the chasm. No, not someone, something. A daemon, a raven with dark blue feathers made of writhing tendrils covered in runes, stared into the darkness, completely ignorant to her presence, and Purilla was terrified to realize she could see the insatiable curiosity within it.
A curiosity she was also feeling.
She knew she had to leave immediately, had to get out of there right now. The presence of the daemon was a clear sign of corruption, yet that was not even the thing that occupied her fears. But she did not. She wasn't sure when she or the daemon had moved. Wasn't sure if they had both entered the chasm out of some subconscious thirst for knowledge or if something else had pulled them in, but she felt it when they passed through the threshold. She felt it because there was that same feeling of disconnect, of passing between the Materium and Immaterium, but this was not a place within either. This was something else entirely.
She wanted to run, wanted to flee. She had to get out, get back to the Materium, to Ellen, to tell her of this strange thing that existed in the Warp, but she couldn't. She couldn't move, it was like she was trapped in cement, but there was only darkness in this realm, only emptiness.
Or so she'd thought.
She could not see the eyes that watched her, but she felt them upon her as clearly as she felt the thread in her grip, though she no longer had fingers with which to hold it. And, she realized, she felt the eyes upon the daemon as well, through the thread it held. And she could feel the other threads now as well, tens of billions of threads, connected to tens of billions of souls. So many minds, yet her awareness was also drawn to something even greater. Like she was seeing the stars in the void of space, a few pinpricks of light that were only a fraction of the whole image.
"Visitors to this little realm, in need of a host perhaps?"
The words resonated and echoed through her mind, reverberating along the web, coming from its center. While she could not perceive the central form in the utter darkness, she found she could understand not only the words themselves, but the meaning intended to be conveyed with them in a way that went beyond verbal or mental communication. The voice was curious, equally about them and about the realm they had found it in. That curiosity was a more powerful feeling than any Purilla had ever encountered, within herself or another. Even the dark eldar she had read, over a decade ago now, had not possessed such strong emotions under far more intense circumstances. There were other emotions as well, she could sense. Hidden, just behind the veil of darkness, some which were even stronger than the curiosity. Mercifully, the voice had not revealed them, or she might have just gone mad.
She recognized the feeling of a mind being read, experiences being viewed, though she had never been on this side of things. She wanted to scream, to struggle, to vomit, but she had no voice, no limbs, no mouth or stomach. She could not allow this thing, whatever it was, to learn the secrets of the Inquisition!
"Your purpose has beem revealed, your secrets already let slip."
Her struggles were not enough, and she could feel the knowledge being drawn out of her by a mind that was more powerful than her by a measure she could not even fathom. She threw up every kind of mental barrier she had to block its path, but it seemed to be able to slip past them with the ease of a fish in water. Where it met resistance it could not find a way around, it simply battered down her mental walls with blows both powerful and carefully measured, until it knew everything. Every secret, even idle thought, every bit of her mind and soul. It studied that knowledge, surveying the entire sum of her life in a matter of moments, if time even had any real meaning here. In that time, it had come to perfectly understand everything about her.
The focus of the entity shifted and Purilla felt it hone in on the daemon. The other monster no longer appeared as the twisted raven it had taken the form of in the Warp, but as it truly was, with all the illusions and interpretations stripped away to reveal the core of its essense. The shards of thoughts and emotions, broken and twisted by an even greater thing that was infinitely more monstrous. A thing that existed to change, yet now was as paralyzed as she was, pinned in place by a force unknowable.
It was struggling even harder than she was, but it was equally helpless. Purilla found some small satisfaction in knowing the daemon would suffer whatever was waiting for her as well.
"This one is just thought and schemes, and has its fate concluded."
Then, the entity's mind was upon her and the pressure she felt was physical, like a heavy weight against her skull, despite her lack of any connection to her body at the moment. The entity brought up the experiences it had viewed and came to its declaration.
"This one is but mind and faith, and is the more deluded."
She saw herself, an odd and terrifying sensation, saw her own mind as it was seen by this entity. Strangely, what she saw wasn't right, or so she thought. She saw a poor, beaten thing, a woman who had been abused and blamed for things beyond her control. Someone so defeated that she had been made to believe that she deserved such punishment, that she was nothing more than a tool of the Inquisition to be discarded when it was deemed her time.
That couldn't be right. She was proud to serve the Inquisition, to serve the Imperium! She was not broken; her mind set was the correct one!
Right?
"You come not as friends, but foes. Not seeking truth, but deceit."
She could feel it studying her, the source of the voice. Just as it could see into her, she could see into it, somewhat. She saw what it saw through countless eyes, felt what it felt through countless hands, heard what it heard. It was like looking through the keyhole of a dark closet, seeing the bright world outside. It was almost painful, but she couldn't look away.
"Listen! Listen… Hear cries that echo through rock and metal and time."
She did. She heard just a fraction of what the voice heard. Billions of voices, in anguish, a constant, endless cry that was only a fraction of a fraction of the whole. She heard the pain in those voices, in those lives, pain that they had grown so used to that they could no longer recognize it as such. They could no longer imagine life without that pain. So much suffering, how could they bear it? Why was this allowed to happen? Why had no one done anything?
"You carry a blameless soul, do you ignore its pain too?"
The soul she held was just one of those pained voices she had heard and she realized with horror that she had looked over his suffering just as she had looked over the suffering of so many countless others. She had seen the injustice that had been inflicted upon him and felt nothing for his plight. She had chalked it up to being an unfortunate, but ultimately unimportant accident.
She had done nothing. She should have seen the pain in others, right? It was her duty, wasn't it? Not only as a Psyker, but as a servant.
"You think only they suffer this? That you live free, not captive?"
She saw her own life again, now with clearer eyes. She saw the abuse that she hadn't known was abuse. The beatings that she'd been told were cleansing her, that she had begun to believe were cleansing her, that had ripped the flesh off her arms. The nights where she had clawed and cut herself, trying to dig the impurities out of her own limbs for hours until they were left raw and bloody and too weak to continue, only for them to eventually heal, still pale and 'unnatural'. She saw the countless times she'd been reminded that she was something lesser simply because of the circumstances of her birth.
She saw the gloves she had worn, the gift given to her by Ellen when she'd been taken into her employ. They were meant to hide who she really was. To pretend she wasn't a freak, to make those around her feel more comfortable. And she had accepted them, like they weren't merely silken cuffs.
Why? Why did she wear them?
"Have a care who you anger, but know your true enemies."
She saw Ellen, saw the Inquisitor she'd always thought had saved her from certain death… and saw that she was nothing but a useful tool to be discarded. Purilla had known that before, of course, but now… now she understood it. Ellen cared for the Imperium, for humanity, but that was all. Not her, not Vidriov, not even the actual people of the Imperium. She fought and tormented and murdered, not to save the people, but to preserve her idea of what 'people' were.
Purilla was not a person in Ellen's eyes. Was anyone?
"Abuse begets more abuse, continues and feeds the cycle."
She saw images now, images of war and bloodshed on a galactic scale. She saw corruption, jagged tears that were wounds not just on the galaxy, but the universe itself. It bled and suffered as they all had. The universe was alive, and it was screaming, but no one had been able to hear its pain because it had no mouth to speak with. Or, she thought with horror, those who could hear its suffering had simply not cared.
Her attention flicked to the daemon, still caught in an invisible spider web, unable to move or speak or think. The entity that watched them both followed her mind's gaze.
"A shard of a darker thing, one of Four cysts on all life."
The Ruinous Powers. Horrible images of them flashed in her mind and she suddenly knew more about them and Chaos than she would ever have wished to. Khorne, the mightiest of the Four, who fed on the bloodshed and slaughter of which the Imperium was both victim and perpetrator. Tzeentch, the one who schemed and planned in the shadows and brought woe to all who worshipped it in time. Nurgle, who spread even greater suffering than the Imperium did to leave those to whom it had brought ruin to either suffer or trick them into embracing an even more horrid fate. And, finally, Slaanesh, the bane of the Eldar who had brought that people to their knees by their own arrogance, who cursed its followers with a need for fulfillment, yet eternally kept them from it.
They were parasites, creatures that engorged themselves upon the suffering souls of not only mortals but the universe as well. They cared nothing for the life that dwelled here, only for the power it brought them and the slaves they could make of the universe's inhabitants.
There were others as well. The beast that prowled the universe and hungered for all life, whose brood even now sought to take Monstrum for its own, to destroy the voice which it saw as its greatest threat. The Star Gods that had tricked the Necrons into willingly giving up their own souls.
Yet, the one who stood out more than the rest was the one that made Purilla quake in sorrow. The Emperor of Mankind Himself, who held the same beliefs and wishes as Ellen did. He who did not seek to protect humans, but what He deemed to be 'Humanity' and destroy anything outside of that imagined selection. He who would sacrifice a million worlds and tear the galaxy, the universe itself apart if it meant 'Humanity' stood atop its ruins.
"His crimes are many and horrid, his motives difficult to see."
The Emperor was not infallible, not perfect and all-knowing, not even a god. He was just another player in a Great Game, one where they were all pawns and their galaxy hung in the balance. They did not see the damage they were doing or, if they did, they did not care. It was 'necessary'. A necessary loss, a necessary sacrifice. Just one more to add to the ever-growing list that was already staggering in its scope.
It all needed to end, Purilla thought. If only to save the universe and its people from suffering, from pain.
"Life must be joy and sorrow, not merely one or neither."
The voice guided her thoughts to yet more knowledge. The universe was able to experience that life through them all. From the smallest of bacteria to the greatest void whale, and everything in between, they were all part of the universe, all a means for the universe to learn and grow and change and be. An end to suffering would be denying the universe a part of itself. An end to everything would be an even greater crime, nothing short of killing the universe itself.
Something in the realm shifted, something that Purilla's mind interpreted as sands running from an hourglass. One that was nearly empty.
"Our talk has come to an end. Before you go, tell me your name?"
She started at the suddenness of the question, the meaning clear to her even if the wording was vague. The voice must have already known her name, so why had it asked? Could she even answer?
"Purilla." The word sounded strange, the meaning muddled and difficult to discern, not like the powerful and clear words of the voice. How had she spoken?
"A gift from me to a friend, one I hope you learn to use."
"Who?" Purilla asked, desperate for an answer. She could feel herself about to depart this realm, about to be guided away by the voice and back into her own realm.
"I ask you keep it unsaid. I am Tide and of the Flood."
"Learn! More!" Purilla begged and there was amusement and sorrow in Tide.
"You know how you might reach me. Breathe deep and we will speak more."
And then, she was gone.
Or rather, back. Purilla started as her mind was wrenched from one realm of existence to another, her eyes snapping open. She was able to stop herself from drawing back, calmly lowering her hands from the unconscious man's head.
Had that been real? Some illusion crafted by a daemon?
No. Of all the questions that had flooded her head, that was the one certainty. Whatever she had spoken to was not of the Warp in nature, but an outsider of even that twisted place.
"Purilla?" Ellen's voice came through the combead in her ear. "What have you learned?"
Purilla kept her face carefully neutral, blank of any of the rising anger she felt. There had been no question of if she was alright, merely a demand for information. How had she not seen how she was mistreated earlier? Or was it that she'd simply thought she had deserved such things?
"I found nothing of interest, Inquisitor."
