As the four round moons gradually rose, Dita stretched her weary body.
The scarlet Celestial Iris had closed its eye once more, and all four moons shone with pure silver light, dyeing the horizon of Macragge City the color of argent.
The gray-white stone hewn from the mountains built this city.
The rough masonry flowed beneath Dita’s feet along the streets like blood coursing through veins, converging from the narrow, capillary-like alleyways onto Proana Avenue.
It passed through Tyrs Gate, past the crowded apartment blocks, past Archon Konor’s Senate Hall and the Temple District where priests prayed over all living beings, finally merging into the beautiful pastoral estates that served as the homes of many senators.
Macragge was a living city.
Dita still remembered what her uncle once said:
“The wise and capable will keep climbing higher in this city, while the ignorant, the incompetent, the degenerate become like worthless cells, metabolized into debt-slaves to serve those of true value.”
“Just wait, Dita.
I will use my knowledge to keep rising.
One day, your uncle might even become a senator.”
Back then, Klein had been full of ambition and confidence when he spoke those words to her.
And Dita had truly believed that her uncle could climb higher and higher on the strength of his knowledge.
Who could have imagined that now, Klein himself was about to be destroyed by the very system of debt slavery…
He knew full well the dangers of gambling.
He knew he could end up a debt slave.
So why did he still gamble?
Why did he still borrow money?
Perhaps because knowledge does not equal wisdom…
Dita sighed.
As she climbed the stairs to the second floor of the apartment building, she calculated next month’s expenses in her head.
Klein and Dita each rented a room on the second floor of this building.
In Macragge, apartment rents were cheaper the lower the floor.
With Klein’s previous income, paying for both rooms hadn’t been too difficult.
But next month…
Klein had missed so many days of work this month.
She didn’t know how much of his wages would remain.
Besides, Dita’s father’s pension was barely enough to cover the first installment of the debt.
She would probably have to use part of Klein’s wages to make up the difference.
She might have to borrow some from Professor Lucretius…
Professor Lucretius had been Klein’s teacher back in his student days and was now the head teacher of the grammar school.
He was also a renowned historical scholar across all of Macragge.
If Uncle Klein were willing to speak with the old professor, they should still be able to borrow some money.
Dita reached out gently and knocked on Klein’s door.
She was a little nervous.
She was still worried Klein had lied to her and run off to the gambling dens…
Come in.”
Relief washed through Dita’s heart.
She pushed open the door and saw Klein at the desk, writing furiously.
“The food’s against the wall,” Klein said, bent over his work without looking up.
Dita saw the bread, fish sauce, and fruits and vegetables Klein had bought, piled in the corner.
“Talassar fish sauce…” Dita murmured.
Talassar was an ocean world, incredibly abundant in marine life.
The local fishermen often piled all manner of mixed fish into enormous fermentation tanks, fermenting them into a condiment known as fish sauce.
But precisely because of the crudeness of its processing, the flavor was relatively unremarkable, often tainted with an excessive fishy stench, incomparable to the fish sauce produced locally on Macragge.
Still, this fish sauce had the advantage of being cheap…
Ever since Lord Konor had strengthened interstellar trade, all kinds of daily goods had become much more affordable.
Dita did not take the food down to the communal kitchen downstairs.
She rose to her feet, softening her footsteps as she approached Klein from behind.
She had noticed earlier that Klein was not writing something, but drawing something.
Dita knew Klein could do some simple sketching, but only to the extent required by his historical research, purely to cope with work, not out of any real interest.
This was the first time Dita had ever seen Klein drawing at home.
Curious, she leaned in closer and found that Klein had just finished one and casually tossed it to the edge of the desk.
Dita looked at that one.
Klein had cut the parchment into card-sized pieces and was drawing simplified images on them with a black fountain pen.
The one he had just finished depicted…
a black giant, clad in armor, one hand a sharp claw, the other a longsword, and sporting a somewhat comical topknot.
What bizarre aesthetics…
Dita couldn’t help remarking inwardly.
But Dita did not voice it.
Even if the aesthetics were a little bizarre, a hobby like drawing was still better than gambling.
Dita glanced at the dozens of other cards Klein had already drawn.
A crimson eye, a planet crumbling apart, a tower beneath lightning, an angel with outstretched wings, a golden-haired demigod in blue armor…
For some reason, as Dita looked at those images composed of jet-black lines, she couldn’t help but shudder.
Those twisting ink lines seemed to proclaim a dark, cold, stagnant, and war-torn future.
Dita withdrew her gaze from those already completed images and looked again at the one Klein was currently drawing…
It was a great throne formed of cables, machinery, and gold.
Beside the throne knelt weeping angels, but among these angels, only one possessed wings; the rest were all clad in heavy armor of various colors.
Adeptus Custodes in golden armor stood beside the angels, and in midair, the corpses of infants flew.
And upon that Golden Throne, upon that throne as vast as a mountain range, was chained…
a laurel-crowned yellow weasel…
Uh…
But she did not disturb him.
She took the ingredients and silently withdrew from the room.
Klein finished the final stroke, lifted his fountain pen, and looked at this last card with satisfaction.
A yellow weasel on the Golden Throne, how wonderful.
What Klein had just drawn was precisely a divination tool called the Emperor’s Tarot.
In this galaxy, this method of divination was considered a prominent study, second only to numerology.
It was said that this Tarot of seventy-eight cards was created by the Emperor himself, connected to the Emperor’s mind upon the Golden Throne.
Through divination with it, one could seek answers from the Emperor’s own thoughts.
It was also one of the few legally permitted methods of divination in the Imperium.
From street diviners to the Administratum, from the Inquisition to the Grey Knights, every stratum of the Imperium favored its use in predicting the future and revealing revelations.
Of course, the Imperial Tarot officially used by the Imperium was mostly made from liquid crystal materials capable of transmitting psychic energy, and Greyfax had once gifted Klein a set.
Klein, now on Macragge, lacked such means and had to make do with parchment.
It would still work, after all, diviners in the Imperium’s Underhive could perform divination using plastic cards blessed by the Ecclesiarchy…
Blessed by the Ecclesiarchy…
According to the Ecclesiarchy’s propaganda, this seemed to be a necessary step; only through blessing could one connect with the will of the Emperor…
But the Ecclesiarchy had yet to be born…
Klein thought for a moment, why not try blessing this Tarot deck himself?
After all, he was the Emperor himself.
Surely his blessing would be more effective than the Ecclesiarchy’s priests’?
Klein tidied the stack of Emperor’s Tarot and brought his hand close to the cards.
“The eighteen Primarchs come forth, the Twenty Legions take heed, Lion Guilliman, Russ Dorn Vulkan, Sanguinius Corax Jaghatai, and also headless Ferrus.
Let light be given, let fortune spring from all things, I beseech the God-Emperor: He who sits upon the Golden Throne, He who is above all, so it is sealed…”
Klein muttered a few words over the Tarot deck.
The Tarot cards on the table appeared unchanged.
Yet looking at this deck, Klein felt an inexplicable surge of confidence, a certainty that these Tarot cards could indeed reveal the future.
It seemed it had worked.
Klein stroked his chin, picked up the Tarot before him, shuffled it a few times, then drew four cards and laid them before himself.
He reached out and turned over the first one…
(Translated by yourtl.app)
─────────────────────────────────────────
TL NOTES — WARHAMMER LORE GUIDE Some references in this chapter draw on Warhammer lore that may be unfamiliar to some readers.
The notes below provide the context needed to understand them.
PLANETS / LOCATIONS Celestial Iris — A red, volcanic-looking moon of Macragge.
The description (a desolate rock streaked with lava valleys and seas of boiling magma, taking on a crimson glow during periods of intense volcanic activity) suggests it may be a reference to Formaska, traditionally identified as one of Macragge’s lesser moons in some sources, though the connection isn’t explicit in the text.
The ancient peoples of Macragge are said to have believed this moon was “the eye of a wrathful god”; when its volcanic activity flared and stained it crimson, they thought the god’s eye was opening to look down on mortals as prey.
In this fanfic’s cosmology, the Iris being “open” (volcanic glow visible) coincides with the Warp veil over Macragge growing thinner, marking the moments when daemonic and cultist witchcraft is at its most potent.
Conversely, “the Iris had closed once more” means the veil has returned to its usual thickness, and the influence of the Warp has receded.
Cicero’s cult deliberately chose a night when the Iris was open to push the scholar to suicide.