Melancthon heard the creature before he saw it. The sound began after they winched back the doors, a task which took nearly all of the Children to accomplish, owing to a failure in the old building’s machinery. When the grinding noise of the metal wheels sliding in their tracks came to a halt, Melancthon still heard a faintly discernable clicking, the king of noise metal makes when tapped against stone. A thin susurration, fabric flapping in the wind, was just about audible.

  The Space Marine reached for his bolter. “There’s no need for that,” Constantine reassured him. The big man smiled, brushing dark hair back from his eyes as he spoke, “In fact, he specifically requested that you don’t shoot him this time.” Melancthon eyed him for a moment and then nodded, letting his hand slip away from the bolter’s handle. He would comply with the Children’s wishes. That did not mean he liked the idea.

  The cold air and oppressive darkness reminded him of Talkion Four. The Storm Warriors, Third Company, had been dispatched on a mission to dispatch a nest of Dark Eldar. The operation had lasted longer than expected. Melancthon vividly remembered a week spent on his belly, crawling through the meter-thick peat sludge of that world’s southern continent, as they infiltrated the Aeldari headquarters. His fingers twitched as they remembered the way one of the creatures had kicked and thrashed as Melancthon looped the razor-wire garrote around its slender throat.

  “Maybe he’s not coming after all,” muttered Miles, his tone a mixture of disappointment and relief.

  “He’s here,” Melancthon replied. He saw the creature now, albeit only vaguely. It appeared just as it had before, down in the cavernous deeps of Luce Prime’s underworld, a huge, dark shape. Even without his helm’s heat augurs, Melancthon recognized it immediately. This time, though, he made out an additional detail. Two thin points of red light, crimson pearls in a dark abyss.

  “Throne of Terra,” breathed Miles, astonished. “It’s massive.” Melancthon grunted his agreement and the old woman cackled softly to herself. He could not be exactly sure just how tall the creature was at this distance, but it was far larger than a Space Marine. He conservatively estimated it to be three meters in height, at least.

  For the second time, Melancthon heard the strange being’s voice. It was a cold, metallic rasp, like a knife whet against bone. “Noli luci confidere, my dear Space Marine,” said the voice, tinkling with something that sounded like amusement. “I did warn you not to trust the light. I suppose I was unduly metaphoric.”

  Two slender limbs reached suddenly out from the darkness. Claw-tipped maniples latched onto the manufactory’s doors, their sharp tips punching deep into the metal. The limbs, black cables of artificial muscle, went rigid with strain as the creature hauled itself rapidly forward, dropping with a metallic clang onto the floor of the hangar. Melancthon flinched, genuinely surprised, and felt his blood boil with energy as his Black Carapace flooded his veins with adrenal stimulants in response to his reaction. He sucked in a deep breath of air, fighting to remain still, as he gazed upon the Devil of Luce Prime.

  It wore robes the color of human ichor, trimmed at the sleeves and cowl with golden lace resemble the teeth of a cog. Its garments suggested a vaguely humanoid form, but Melancthon saw neither legs nor arms, only writhing masses of serpentines mechadendrites that thrashed and danced out of its sleeves and along the ground. Its face was leering skull, the bleached bone of its eye sockets surrounding two red augmetic orbs that gleamed with cruel intelligence above a mouth sewn shut with steel wire.

  Melancthon met the subdevil. And it was a Tech Priest of Mars.

  The Children started back in shock as the creature lurched forward on its unstable limbs, some of them crying out. One raised a weapon in panic, but a cable shot forward from the Tech Priests robes and wrapped around the sidearm, yanking it from the man’s grip.

  “Calm down, everyone,” ordered Suna, fixing the rebels with her withering, half-blind gaze. Slowly, the Children relaxed into an uneasy semblance of composure. She turned her attention to the Space Marine. “Brother Melancthon, allow me to introduce our founder, the Most Eminent Erastor Trismegistus of the Adeptus Mechanicus.”

  “Oh, let’s not stand on ceremony, my dear Suna,” said the creature, its cold voice piping out from a speaker that dangled at the end of a limb. “After all, the good Brother and I have met before.” Several of the creatures limbs clacked metal claws at one another in a bizarre parody of an audience laughing at a stage performer.

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  Melancthon stared grimly at the creature. He was not sure what he had hoped for, but certainly it had not been a mad Tech Priest. The Martian Mechanicum was famous for its secrecy. Melancthon had never before met a Tech Priest whose actions had not concealed some ulterior motive. He found that he was not sure what to say.

  “It is…gratifying to meet you,” he said finally.

  “Oh, but we have met before, my dear Elezar Melancthon. Weren’t you listening?” The priest’s eyes flickered briefly, perhaps in mirth.

  “I see, yes,” replied Melancthon, wrongfooted somehow. “I apologize if I caused you any harm.”

  The semi-sentient cables retracted, their motivators hissing as they did so. The skull glanced down at them, shaking its dead visage reprovingly. “Yes, of course. I admit that the damage to my form was regrettable. But the repairs! That was most stimulating. Mmm, thoroughly so.”

  In Melancthon’s experience, most Martian Magi were pontificating morons. On the surface, this one appeared no different. On a deeper level, however, Melancthon sensed something brooding, almost sinister about this monstrous being. “You know my name?”

  “It has been catalogued in the planetary databanks by the Golden Duke. Ergo, yes, I know it.”

  “I was not aware that the Adeptus Mechanicus had a presence on this world.”

  “Oh, we did once. Who do you think engineered this world’s great spires? Your kind departed this world millennia ago, my dear Elezar Melancthon.”

  “You are an ally of the Children? You are loyal to the God-Emperor?”

  The skull tilted to the side, eyeing Melancthon like a curious dog. Looking more closely at it, Melancthon realized that the stitches along the creature’s jaw were made in the shape of the aquila. “I assure you, Brother Melancthon, that no one on this world has served the Omnissiah as devoutly or enduringly as I.”

  “Miles told me that Marius purged this world of the Ecclessiarchy. How did you survive?”

  Trismegistus slithered closer. “The same way I survived his purge of my kind, one-hundred and fifty years prior. I remained in the depths of the city.”

  Melancthon blinked, stunned. “Marius has reigned for over a century?”

  The creature shook its head. A vidscreen on one of its cables flashed a null sign. “No, my dear Elezar Melancthon. I indicated he initiated a purge of our noble priesthood a century-and-a-half before he purged the organic religious orders.”

  “Then…”

  “Then Marius has been alive for two centuries?” Miles blurted.

  Trismegistus’s claws clicked approvingly. “The prize goes to you, Master Absalom. I presume, Mistress Absalom, based on bioreferencing patterns that this male is indeed your progeny?”

  “He is,” Suna affirmed.

  “How enchanting. Tell me, Mister Absalom, have you ever considered the merits of augmentation?” Miles stepped backwards, looking nonplussed.

  “You wanted to meet me,” Melancthon interposed. “And now I’m here. Explain what you want from me.”

  The priest retracted, raising himself to his full height of nearly four meters. “Want from you? Oh no, not at all, Brother Melancthon. You see, I’ve come to offer you a gift. It’s a little something I’ve been preparing for the last several decades in the hope that the Omnissiah would answer my supplications. Your presence suggests to me that he has heard me.”

  “A gift? I’ve never known the Adepts of Mars to be especially generous.”

  The Tech Priest approximated a shrug. It was an unsettling performance. “You wound me. Again.”

  Melancthon actually cracked a smile. “Forgive me. What is the nature of this gift?”

  “You need an army, Elezar Melancthon. I can give it to you.”

  “And in return?”

  “And in return, you will recover something for me.”

  Melancthon gritted his teeth. There was always a catch with these magi. Nothing involving them was ever free, especially their gifts.

  “Very well, what do you wish me to recover?” The cables danced in amusement and the skull lowered itself back down to Melancthon’s height, peering into the Space Marine’s eyes.

  “Tell me, Space Marine, have you ever heard of an Ess-Tee-See?”

  Melancthon! There is much more to come, so please consider following the story if you want to see the conclusion.

  Melancthon was my first attempt to write a short story set in the 40k universe. When I was writing it, I was still developing a feel for the setting's style, patterns, and characters. That's why I decided to write it, actually: I wanted to experiment with writing a story anchored around a lone Space Marine.