Walking through the corridors of the Bastion of Reason once again, Kerran tried not to pry into people’s minds.
However, it was difficult to manage when thoughts and feelings poured in a torrent not only from ordinary mortals, but even from battle-brothers.
On the fleet’s flagship, the Herald of Graphia, not prying into people’s minds was even harder.
There were more of them, and the Librarians had not yet become a common sight for them.
Each of the void-born, sailors, and other crew members surrounding him was like a book to him.
A book whose opening drained his strength and, to some extent, irritated him.
Perhaps someday he would lose his temper and tell the first void-born who thought his bodily waste was sacred exactly what he thought of him… But for now, he was surrounded by his brother-Librarians, which calmed him somewhat.
Their procession entered a spacious, circular hall.
By Kerran’s estimation, they were in the centre of the ship.
And what was it for?
But all questions could wait.
For each of them would now be occupied with a most important ritual, one that could prove fateful for their forces.
“Epistolary Kerran,” a detached voice rang out from the centre of the hall.
“Are you ready for the ritual?” “Yes, Master Farail,” Kerran replied.
“I am ready to take the risk.” It was all just theory.
An untested idea that could end in complete disaster.
But in an unknown galaxy, without any bearings, without the light of the Emperor, this ritual was the only possible solution.
Once, he and his brother had already tested it.
It had worked then, and the ambushed forces of the chapter were saved.
But they had been on the same planet then, under completely different conditions.
He and Barest were twins.
Their mother had died in childbirth, and due to her high position (who she was, he could no longer remember), they were to be sent to the Schola.
Then their gift was discovered.
Or curse, as it was called then.
A connection to the Immaterium.
An aptitude for warp-sorcery.
Psykerhood.
They could have died from the superstitions of the locals.
Could have perished in the cells of the Black Ship.
Could have lost control and let daemons into their home world.
They could have, but Farail, then still an Epistolary, saw something in the two youths and saved them, taking them as neophytes for his chapter.
That was their first step among many on the long path to becoming Librarians of the Angels of Retribution.
Much time had passed since then, and Farail had managed to understand the thing that had interested him.
Their connection.
Whether it was because they were twins, or some other circumstance, was unknown.
Only one thing was clear — they could feel each other.
On the edge of perception, only touching each other’s souls, but they could feel.
That was what had helped them connect then.
But would it help now?
Well, they would find out.
He walked past the brothers who were to support him with their strength.
Past the Chaplains standing guard, who glowered at him.
Then his gaze caught on a strange girl.
Her fiery red hair and beauty seemed out of place, as did the psychic hood.
So, she was a psyker.
Farail rarely allowed outsiders to a ritual, only if there was a reason.
Meanwhile, the girl raised her head, and smiling, addressed him: “I’ll try to help you as much as I can.
I hope you succeed,” she paused for a second, then spoke to him again.
“After all, it will also be a way to thank him.
Good luck.” He felt as if turned to stone, but still managed to find the strength to move on.
Never before had he heard such… sincere words of support.
But nonetheless, it was truly pleasant, and her soft, gentle voice seemed to dispel all his fears.
He would have to find out what that was.
He sat down in the circle of the hexagram drawn on the floor by Farail himself.
The precaution seemed unnecessary, but who knew what might be lurking in the empyrean of this galaxy?
“Everything is ready,” Farail turned to the row of Chaplains.
“Nestor, you may begin.” Their leader stepped out from behind the Chaplains.
Nestor was considered the deputy of the Chapter’s Master of Holiness, but in essence, he led the Chaplains who were supporters of Casimir.
It was good to see he hadn’t changed.
Still ready at any moment to grant liberation from daemons, yet at the same time not feeling hatred for everything that moved.
“Brother Nestor,” Kerran said, perhaps for the last time.
“If a local creature begins to overcome me, grant me peace.” “Very well, brother.
I will fulfil your request, no matter how hard it may be for me.” Nodding, Kerran prepared to begin.
The Chaplains, led by Nestor, began to chant the Song of Nazea, while the brother-Librarians surrounding him directed their power into one large bundle.
A beacon and source of energy for his spiritual body.
Finally, he separated his spirit.
Slowly receding, he saw his eyes roll back and saliva drip from his mouth.
Then his lips began to move slowly: “The brother goes to the brother.
Barriers do not frighten him, for behind him is the strength of hundreds.
He is ready for death and oblivion.” Excellent.
So he had already begun to prophesy, thereby helping his brothers at least a little.
He soared above the fleet.
From this distance, it looked like a scattering of blue spheres due to the activated Geller Fields.
Then his psychic body began to form, gathering ethereal mass.
He was clad in yellow armour and a blue cloak, a grey hood covered his head, and his staff took the form of a trident composed of three swords.
Every Librarian had their own form, but the trident of three swords was a peculiarity of the brothers of his chapter.
Finishing the transformation, he decided to tear his gaze away from the flotilla and the barely forming beacon.
He should have waited.
There was a film around him.
He could feel the Warp, but at the same time, he could not.
As if some barrier separated him from the empyrean.
“He sees the path, but has no access.
He is like a fish in a glass lake.
He is trapped, but he will come out into the light,” the prophecy continued.
He needed to understand what was beyond that film.
That meant he had to overcome it.
Now he turned back to the beacon, this time trying to draw power.
And then he tried to breach it.
It was like crossing quicksand.
In power armour.
He tried to move forward, but something seemed to pull him back.
He couldn’t say how long he tried to break through, but then he felt the path.
He understood how and where to go.
And he passed through, tearing the film thanks to the strength of his brothers.
“Barriers are swept away, and the path is clear.
Time to set out for the haven of the traitors,” he said with relief.
A multitude of images suddenly washed over him.
He couldn’t understand where or how they came from.
He simply saw… “…It’s over, Anakin, I stand above you!..” Why were there so many… “…Return my power to me, Guardian!..” Where to go… “…Luke, help me.
Take off the mask…” How to stop them… “…Seven hearts set out on the road, seven deaths guard them…” No point in fighting… “…I won’t abandon you!
Not this time!..” They couldn’t be defeated… “…Our bodies no longer exist, but the people of Amestris still have somewhere to return to!..” They were endless… “Forgive me, Horus, but you are too naive.” “Sanguinius, no!” “SANGUINIUS, YES!
Die, Horus!
I will drink your blood in the glory of Slaanesh!” He had lost… Suddenly, a voice at the edge of his consciousness shouted insistently: “Fight!
Struggle!
LIVE!” And his spirit soared.
Even if he lost, he had no right to retreat.
Everyone in the flotilla believed in him.
Each of his brothers awaited his victory.
The Librarians, already collapsing to the floor from exhaustion, were giving their last strength for him.
That psyker girl continued to believe in him.
And that truly helped.
He raised his trident with difficulty, then cut through another canvas before him.
He walked forward, tormented by hundreds of thousands of voices.
He tore apart countless unknown people and creatures.
He walked forward, and finally broke through.
There were still many of them.
Who was sending them and how was impossible to determine.
He felt something greater than these visions.
Something incomprehensible.
A fallen deity, waiting for its hour.
And he had awakened it with his intrusion, and now this power was trying to expel the invader.
But it seemed to have more important matters, and it abandoned the intruder after the first attempt at expulsion.
At least, that was what Kerran wanted to believe.
“He has overcome all multitudes of enemies.
He has subdued all past, future, and present heroes.
He has won, albeit at a great cost.
Now it is time for him to go on his way.” His voice trembled, and his lips barely moved.
It seemed the spiritual struggle had not affected his body well.
He broke through the film again, spending his own and others’ strength.
He passed through hundreds of worlds, remembering everything about them that he could capture.
It was unknown how long he walked until he found what he sought.
The planet they had been sent to.
The place for which they were once again staking everything.
The Sanctuary of the Fallen.
The Arena where their fate would be decided.
This planet was called Mandalore.
And now he knew how to get there.
“The path is long, difficult, and not swift.
The events of the present and the past, the distant and the near, torment him.
But he has found what he needed.
He has found the haven of the Forgotten Chieftain.” He was already planning to continue his search.
But then he noticed something that caught his attention.
As if he were not the only one ploughing the expanses of a foreign empyrean, making his way through the film and unknown visions.
Approaching this power, he felt a kinship.
This could only mean one thing.
Moving on, he felt his brother more and more strongly.
It was definitely Barest.
So he, too, had set out to find their destination.
It seemed he tore through the film endlessly.
He looked for bearings but couldn’t understand where to search.
He found something familiar, but at the same time lost it.
His brothers continued to fall to the floor, and Nestor, with a sigh, was already loading his bolt pistol.
The feeling of despair became stronger than ever.
Then it ended.
“Brother, is that you?” Barest’s voice rang out.
“Can you hear me?” “Yes…” he replied, with his own voice, through both his spiritual and physical forms.
“I can hear you…” Tears streamed from his eyes.
It had worked… The Warp, the Immaterium, the Othersea.
Different peoples and races of living beings always called the immaterial dimension in their own way, where all thoughts and feelings directly influenced reality, forming what the mon-keigh, in their own ignorance, called the “Chaos Gods.” The Othersea was not something that belonged exclusively to one galaxy or even one universe.
The Immaterium, like air, connected countless universes, parallel planes, and pocket dimensions.
At least, that was what the records in the archives of the craftworld Kael-Melok said.
As a Seer, Irilit had full access to the great legacy of her long-dead ancestors.
The pitiful scraps of scientific knowledge of the fallen Eldar empire… The majestic craftworlds, which served as salvation arks for the remnants of the once-omnipotent Eldar race, simply could not physically contain the colossal volume of knowledge and scientific achievements accumulated by the blessed children of Asuryan over countless millions of years of their undivided dominance.
Much was irretrievably lost, much was now forgotten.
Of the technologies once incomprehensible to the human mind, only fairy tales and myths of past achievements remained for the modern Aeldari.
Malicious tongues whispered that even before their fall, the Eldar not only possessed effective immortality through the now-lost ability to reincarnate their soul in a new body, but could also travel between different dimensions.
However, this already resembled the aggressive propaganda of the craftworld Biel-Tan about the return of lost greatness more than reliable information.
In the present day, answers to most questions could be found in the legendary Black Library, the abode of Cegorach, but given the strained relations between Kael-Melok and the servants of the Laughing God… In any case, the Seer, accompanied by a retinue of bodyguards, became the first Eldar to break out of their universe.
For all the recent time, Irilit, with short breaks for food and brief rest, had devoted herself entirely to immersing in the calm flow of the local Immaterium.
All her initial guesses had been confirmed.
Just as an oil film on water blocks access to oxygen, so an amorphous, indescribable something shielded this reality from the predatory horrors of the Immaterium.
In over six thousand years of a rather eventful life, the “Dreamer” had encountered something like this for the first time.
The grip of not only She-Who-Thirsts, but also… the Seer barely felt her connection to Ynnead.
It was strange to again feel the warmth of life, lost after her dedication to the god of the dead.
It was still too early to draw any definite conclusions, but this galaxy certainly held many intriguing secrets.
Returning to the problems of the material world… At least one standard week had passed since the terrifyingly powerful Warp Storm had playfully tossed the humans’ unseemly little ships into a completely new, unfamiliar Galaxy.
All this time, the servants of the Dead God had diligently ignored the existence of aliens on their ships, for which the latter were unspeakably grateful.
The last thing they needed was to fall under the hot hand of mon-keigh driven mad by panic.
Speaking of them.
The calm flow of the local Immaterium allowed Irilit to use her own extraordinary psychic potential without worrying about the predatory daemons of the Warp.
If the “veil” was a film, then the Seer’s mind was a needle, capable of piercing the barrier without much effort.
Practically invulnerable to attacks from outside, the “shroud” proved pliable to influence from within.
In moments of rare rest, the Seer amused herself by reading the thoughts of the human crew of her not-so-bright allies’ ships.
It was worth noting that the mon-keigh had, surprisingly, endured the shocking news of the latest events that had befallen them with remarkable resilience.
Most of the problems were limited to the cleansing of “subversive elements” by Space Marines lurking in the shadows, as well as the execution of maddened sailors on one of the lower decks of the massive Space Marine barge.
The commendable resilience of the crew was largely the merit of the commander of the crusade, the Chapter Master of the Space Marines.
No, the people still felt a gnawing sense of anxiety locked deep within their minds, but their faith in their lord managed to drive away the darkness of doubt that was actively tightening its ring around their hearts.
Mon-keigh, for the most part, could be stupid, ignorant blocks of wood, but some pleasant exceptions could boast of considerable charisma.
The “Dreamer” smirked, recalling a few pleasant glimmers from the distant days of her past youth.
Over the past seven standard days, the Seer had not yet fully acclimated to her new conditions, but if her prediction was correct, she would soon have a meeting that would determine their future fate.
“Seer, you have a visitor…” The Exarch of the Howling Banshees, hidden behind a ritual mask, caught herself at the last moment, preventing the usual condescending “mon-keigh” from slipping out.
“A guest.” E’turi, an Exarch tempered in the fire of a thousand battles, found it difficult to be on the ship of those she had, until recently, killed by the hundreds on battlefields.
Even after dedicating her soul to the service of Ynnead, her Biel-Tan origins made themselves known.
Honestly, the Seer would have preferred her long-time bodyguard, the loyal Warlock K’saador, as her right hand, but having volunteered to lead a Deathwatch kill-team to the “Eye of Vaul,” the old friend had vanished without a trace in the raging fury of the merciless empyrean.
“I know,” the Seer nodded briefly.
“You may relax.
I will receive him.” * * * Dionysus Burton, Chapter Master of the Sons of the Anathema, was in a foul mood.
The last week could have been a veritable nightmare had the Space Marine been an ordinary mortal, but even considering the superhuman capabilities, the legacy of his genetic father, the Primarch of the Ultramarines, and Burton’s personal qualities, the burden he had to shoulder… The Warp Storm had scattered the crusade forces across space unknown to the servants of the Emperor.
Residual Warp disturbances prevented the astropaths from establishing contact over any significant distance, which undoubtedly made it difficult to unite the forces of the Imperium of Man that had survived the fury of the elements.
Once the daemons trying to break through onto the ships ceased to be threat number one, humans predictably entered the game.
After the standard executions of madmen and Warp-twisted mutants for such situations, the next enemy the master had to face was the proverbial human nature.
Old conflicts sharpened drastically under the new circumstances.
From petty domestic squabbles to fundamental contradictions between the different factions of the Imperium.
Old ailments, previously unnoticeable thanks to the colossal size of the human empire, had turned the entire crusade into a powder keg ready to explode at any moment once they found themselves in a new Galaxy.
Then again, Burton had occupied his throne as a Space Marine Chapter Master for nearly three hundred years for a reason.
From his genetic father, Dionysus had inherited a talent for organizing and managing huge masses of people.
A seasoned politician and a celebrated warrior rolled into one, the master knew perfectly well how to keep a man from self-destruction.
The defenders of humanity who had ended up in an unknown Galaxy needed a new goal like air — something around which to rally the Emperor’s faithful servants.
At first, seizing and securing the planets nearest to the crusade fleet served perfectly well as such a “goal.” The local xeno-races would curse the day the Emperor’s servants, filled with righteous fury, rained down upon their heads like a cleansing storm, but the Space Marine master needed to keep his subordinates occupied with something else.
A temporary measure that gave the Reaver brothers free rein in their grim, bloody work.
While condemning hundreds to death, Dionysus found the very thought of such a fate for the valiant defenders of the Imperium repugnant.
Of course, a certain portion of them were rare scoundrels capable of sticking a knife in your back, or incompetent idiots who held their positions through the patronage of their powerful relatives.
By getting rid of such weeds, Burton was doing the Emperor a favour.
Nevertheless, there were far more of those who devoted themselves wholeheartedly to the defense of humanity, yet whose principles, fanaticism, or pride could become the very match that would ignite the powder keg.
The matter was far more complicated with the Angels of Death.
Space Marine Chapters had always been distinguished by their exceptional independence, millennia-old traditions, and a long list of their own accomplishments.
Gathering such dissimilar defenders of humanity together had never been an easy task, and when their genetic fathers were different primarchs… Ugh.
The situation was only made worse not only by long-standing treaties of friendship and oaths of battle-brotherhood, but also by ancient enmities between various Chapters.
More than four thousand Angels of Death formed a strike fist capable of bringing entire sectors of space lost to humanity back before the Emperor’s judgment.
Three full-strength Chapters, including the Sons of the Anathema, supported by combat groups up to standard company strength from a whole array of different Chapters.
Discord among the Space Marines had once already led to the bloody Badab War, in which over a dozen loyal Chapters, with a persistence worthy of a better cause, had spilled each other’s guts.
Now, when everything hung by a thread, preventing a second Badab had become one of Dionysus Burton’s top priorities.
Since their founding, the Sons of the Anathema had devoted themselves entirely to fighting the destructive forces of Chaos and hunting the Astartes brothers who had betrayed the Emperor’s light.
The glorious history of the Ultramarines’ successors included hundreds of destroyed Chaos warbands and shattered renegade apostates.
Unlike most of their brothers from the 13th Legion Astartes, the Sons of the Anathema did not consider it necessary to constrain themselves within the bounds of the Codex Astartes when it came to exterminating heretics who had betrayed humanity.
Any means capable of securing victory were used, including xenos-tech carefully hidden from the Inquisition’s watchful eyes.
The Brazen Claws, the proud sons of Ferrus Manus who had won considerable glory in battles against the forces of Abaddon the Despoiler during his thrice-cursed Thirteenth Black Crusade, had not made contact.
The captains, lieutenants, and sergeants from the operational support groups had, for the most part, confirmed their loyalty to the Master of the Sons of the Anathema.
Unfortunately, this fact only slightly sweetened the bitter pill of a fairly predictable betrayal for Burton.
The fleet of the Angels of Retribution, the successor Chapter of the Dark Angels, had ignored all attempts to contact them and made a Warp jump in an unknown direction.
Among all the loyal Astartes Chapters, the sons of Lion El’Jonson differed little from the warbands of renegades who had rejected the Emperor’s light.
Conspiracies, betrayal, and backstabbing — those were the words Burton could use to describe these degenerates.
Honestly, Dionysus would have preferred to fight side by side with the Flesh Tearers rather than with these heretics.
At least the mad Sons of Sanguinius, and especially their master Gabriel Seth, knew the concept of honour befitting a true servant of the Emperor.