Amberley Veil had lived a long, adventurous life. So much so that what most people would consider the greatest or most horrible experience of their lifetimes became just another Tuesday to her. She had hunted down rogue Inquisitors, infiltrated Chaos cults, and held back Tau invasions by wit and schemes. She’d been serving the Imperium of Man as one of His Inquisitors for centuries. Few could say they had more experience at fighting the Emperor’s enemies, or just experience in general — outside of His Angels — than her.
This st mission of hers, however, made her feel like she was back to being an Inquisitorial Agent, a role she’d left behind in her teenage years.
Despite her long life, this was the first time she’d met a member of the Adeptus Custodes, though that wasn’t as much of a rarity as what that golden giant was actually doing. Amberley, in her weaker moments, even entertained the idea that Lord Octavian was in some way compromised before quickly dismissing the idea. The Custodian Guard were incorruptible, the perfect warriors handcrafted by the Emperor of Mankind. It was all but heresy to even think one of them could be anything but the perfect servant to Him on Terra.
Still, she was experienced enough to handle the novelty of her newest task, or rather, tasks. Lord Octavian didn’t technically have the authority to order her around, much less to draft her and her entourage entirely into his service like he’d done. But then again, who would dare to say no to a Custodian Guard on a holy mission from the Emperor himself? Idiots and heretics.
Amberley was neither, and she had long learned to adapt; it was what made sure she didn’t end up in a ditch somewhere only after a few short years of service. It’s been a long time since she needed to, but the rust was quickly falling off. The st thing that truly threw her for a loop and upended her worldview had been the resurrection of Guilliman, the emergence of the Great Rift before that, and then the waking of the Necron menace across the gaxy before that.
That is to say, it took a lot to shake her, but this Psyker Lord Octavian travelled all the way out into the Gactic fringe to meet had managed it with ease. Not just anything she did, but what she said, and how she said it. Even before her warpcraft silenced her conversation with Lord Octavian, the things she’d said rocked Amberley to her core.
She’d dismissed them at first, but then she took a gnce at Lord Octavian and recognised the folly of doing so. If the Custodian believed her and took Echidna so seriously, who was she to doubt his judgment? Even with all her experience, training, and carefully concealed cybernetics, she was just human, while Octavian was so much more.
Amberley heaved a deep sigh, sinking deeper into the soft bedding and the comfort of the warm body next to hers as she gazed absently at the ceiling. Ciaphas was snoring softly into her shoulder, the big baby having fallen asleep before she could rope him into her preferred mode of rexation. The stress had gotten to him, more so than it did to her.
It would be ‘morning’ soon, and she would have to get out of the peaceful little world that was her private room and get started on the newest mission Lord Octavian had saddled her with.
Her two primary objectives were handing the Jericho Reach over to the horrifyingly powerful Psyker, and after that, robbing one of the most prominent Archmagos Dominus of his most prized possession for her. For the record, the ‘Dominus’ part of his title stood for him being a Magos specialising in warfare, so the task promised to be … interesting.
Not that she hadn’t done simir things before, since the Priesthood of Mars were the most common offenders of the ban on using Xeno technology and devices without explicit Inquisitorial approval. Hell, she’d been tasked with destroying more than a handful of relics held by the Mechanicus that the Inquisitoriate deemed too dangerous.
However, Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl wasn’t just any run-of-the-mill Magos. The man was almost unique, ancient by all standards, having been alive — in some interpretations of the word—ever since the Great Crusade. The relic she was supposed to retrieve from him was one that the Lord Guilliman had handed over to him, personally, more than 10,000 years ago.
It would be tricky, to say the least, although it wouldn’t be the most dangerous thing she’d ever done. Better yet, she could rope Ciaphas into helping. As much as the man had an inexplicable ability to get into trouble wherever he went, he was still her lucky charm. Whatever mission she’d been on where he was tagging along tended to turn out well in the end. Once was luck, twice was a coincidence, thrice was suspicious, but thirty-seven times across three centuries? That was something else; she didn’t know what. Perhaps it was like many cimed, and he was beloved by the Emperor, though she wasn’t quite convinced.
But his unnatural luck was not something she doubted, not anymore, and besides, she really didn’t want to do this without him. There were a few things that could rex her nerves quite as easily as a nice dinner and then a subsequent night spent with Ciaphas. She would need to keep her nerve if she didn’t want this task to be her st, or worse, return from it without the relic.
Amberley let her thoughts fade, trying to enjoy the current comfort she was submerged in. It wouldn’t st, and she had a sneaking suspicion that such a thing would become a rarity going forward, so she ought to treasure it for all it was worth.
On that note, perhaps Ciaphas would be up for some active rexation after a full night of restful sleep. A smirk spread on her lips as her fingers traced the muscles on his bare chest. Well, he’d never been difficult to convince to engage in some fun. His breath hitched, his eyelids fluttering open and zeroing in on Amberley’s growing grin. She so adored that befuddled look in his eyes, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The silly man gulped, but didn’t leave her wanting when her hand travelled further south.
*****
“You can come in,” I said absently, sitting mid-air with my legs crossed as I gazed out into space. All my rooms had massive windows for walls, so who wouldn’t want to stargaze from amidst the stars themselves? I heard the door open, and then the Tau shuffled in with each step taken with extreme care. “So, on a scale from one to ten, how freaked out are your stuck-up superiors?”
Aun’saal, despite the visible nervousness clinging to him like a cloak, managed a snort. He coughed, aborting the sound halfway through as some of the rigidity faded from his posture.
“Ten, I’d say,” he said after a moment, walking up to gaze at the stars with me, though he stayed a respectful one step behind me and to the side like a retainer. “That golden giant handed over to you what they and their ancestors could only dream of. It made them reevaluate their stances on some topics, primarily in how much care they should take in the future when associating with you.”
“And you are here because they think a familiar face would make me less likely to throw this half-hearted alliance aside when the Imperium gave me what I wanted?” I hummed, felt him stiffen, then snorted. “You can assure them that I’ll be keeping to our agreement, though there would have to be some further addendum. For one, considering my actions are bringing in the remaining Imperial holdings in the Jericho Reach, all of it belongs to me by the word of our agreement.”
“ … that it does.” He nodded carefully.
“But I can’t govern an entire sector, not as I am,” I said. “So I propose we come to an agreement that will be mutually beneficial. The new worlds we add to our holdings will be mine by w, pay me tithes, and I can requisition whatever resources I want from them without question, but in turn I will leave governing and operating them to your Sept. They can pay taxes of their own and export or import as they wish without paying tariffs.”
There was no way in hell I was going to deal with the absolute tedium of turning the brainwashed Imperial citizens who guzzle up propaganda like it's water into something patable. Fuck that. I’ll take the words close to my current holdings, and the few nearby systems that don’t have massive poputions. The Tau could deal with the rest. It was a temporary matter anyway, since I was pnning to merge the Velk’Han Sept into my burgeoning empire once I was ready. Though that was probably decades, or maybe centuries, away. I was ageless and as close to immortal as one could be without becoming a Warp God. I needed to start thinking on the timescale of centuries for my long-term pns.
A few generations should wipe away Imperial brainwashing, especially if I nudged it along.
“I believe that would be agreeable to my fellow Aun,” Aun’saal said with another serious nod. “They were primarily worried you would stonewall the spread of the Greater Good into these newly acquired territories.”
“I don’t intend to.” Especially if I could warp the ‘Greater Good’ in the future to serve my purposes. “But I think we are getting ahead of ourselves. Even if Octavian can truly get the High Lords of Terra to disband the Achilus Crusade, it is possible that not all of the Admirals here will accept it. Worse, the High Lords no longer hold ultimate authority over the Imperial Navy and Guard. Guilliman could be a problem, as could the Adeptus Astartes Chapters present in the Sector, who would no doubt ignore orders from Terra to abandon the Reach.”
I wasn’t very worried about any of that. Octavian’s information would make eliminating them all rather straightforward, and even if Guilliman decided to dismiss Octavian’s orders to abolish the Achilus Crusade, I could probably just shut the Jericho-Maw Warp Gate. I’d never done anything like that before, but Valenith said closing Warp Rifts required brute force, not finesse. Besides, this Warp-Gate was maintained by some ancient Xeno arcanotech device that whichever writer came up with probably btantly copied from Stargate. I doubted it would keep working if I tore it in half.
But that was the st resort. I loathed the idea of destroying ancient artifacts, especially ones as useful and fascinating as the Warp Gate. No, history was meant to be preserved and studied. On that, I agreed wholeheartedly with Trazyn.
“Speaking of which,” Aun’saal said, making a show of hesitating for a second, making me roll my eyes. “Might I ask for you to clear up a few details our intelligence services have failed to shed light on? It seems you are quite knowledgeable about the inner workings of the Imperium, beyond even what an Ordained Psyker might be aware of.”
“What do you want to know?” I asked, suppressing a smirk. Dropping world-shaking revetions on people was quickly becoming one of my favourite hobbies. I just couldn’t resist whenever the opportunity presented itself.
“First of all, due to the … chaotic start of the negotiation, I’m afraid the initial round of introductions had been missed,” Aun’saal said. “We are thus quite curious about the identity of that Lord Octavian with whom you negotiated. Few are the men who could supersede the authority of both an Inquisitor and a Lord Commander, to our understanding of the murky hierarchy of the Imperium.”
“He is a member of the Adeptus Custodes, the Ten Thousand-strong Custodian Guard of the Emperor himself,” I said. “A Custodian is to an Astartes what an Astartes is to a regur human. Each is a one-man army, the second most powerful type of transhuman supersoldiers in the Imperium, second only to the Primarchs. You do know what both of those are, right? With the amount of propaganda the Imperium keeps churning out, it would be harder for you not to know if you were trying at all.”
“We are aware that the Adeptus Custodes exists, yes; however, it is … challenging to tell propaganda and myths from reality,” Aun’saal said with some annoyance. “The same goes for the Primarchs. It is the current agreement that they are mere myths from another age, having grown rger than life in the many millennia since their deaths. Even their existence is doubted, thought to be just another propaganda tool, absorbing myths of famous heroes from across Mankind’s many cultures and adding them to their own pantheon, like how they do so with the Cult of the God-Emperor.”
That was … actually fair. I certainly didn’t believe ancient myths like how Romulus and Remus grew up breastfed by a she-wolf, or Arthur’s Camelot, or just about anything to do with the Greek Pantheon, or the Norse one. And those happened less than 3000 years ago, while the Primarchs were most active more than three times as far back in time, retively. I’d probably think the same, had I not known better.
“I suppose that’s fair,” I said reluctantly, then huffed. “Nonetheless, they are very real. I’ve met two of them in the flesh, as you’ve likely gathered already. Some of their feats might be a bit exaggerated, but they are just about the most powerful creatures currently living in this Gaxy.”
If you consider the C’Tan to be semi-dead, at least at the moment. Also, Warp-born creatures didn’t count.
With that in mind, there was the Emperor, Orikan, maybe Abbadon and Eldrad. A few of the stronger Phoenix Lords might also be in the running, but I doubted they’d manage to defeat even Lorgar, the least powerful of the Primarchs. Gazgkhull, the Orkish Prophet of the WAAAGH, could probably beat a weaker Primarch, too. Who else? Ahriman? Mephiston? Kaldor Draigo? Constantin Valdor?
“The Imperium does seem to love relying on champions,” Aun’saal said, rubbing his chin. “I’d call it idiotic, because morale and their armies tend to colpse when said champion falls, but then I remember that their nonsensical Navy Combat Doctrine has a disproportionately high record of successes.”
“Primarchs are even worse in that regard,” I said. “All of them are blessed, quite literally, so that they can only die in a way deserving of a legendary warrior. You cannot kill a Primarch with a sniper shot or a ndmine. Fate itself will intervene to save their lives. They need to have a st stand, a final battle that others will write songs about. I know what you think, what your people think about Psykers and the Warp, but it is quite real. Unfortunately."
“So you’ve told me,” he said, a severe frown on his blue face. “And this ‘Guilliman’ is one such Primarch?”
“Roboute Guilliman is the Primarch of the Ultramarines Astartes Legion, and he is the current Lord Regent of the Imperium of Man, ruling it in the pce of his father, the Emperor.” I flicked up an illusory image of the biggest blueberry. Regal features, golden hair, stern face, piercing stare, all wrapped up in Neo-Roman finery. Guilliman. “He could be a problem because he has already established that his authority is absolute above even the High Lords of Terra. Octavian can easily bully the tter into doing whatever he wants, but not Guilliman. Not that I think he will interfere, he has bigger problems than retaining control of the Jericho Reach … if he does interfere, then it’s likely just to spite me.”
Or was I thinking too much of myself? I mean, he surely has bigger problems than little old me. Then again, he did look at me pretty murderously before we parted ways.
He managed to get me to give him a short rundown of my experiences with Guilliman with some polite begging. After that, I gently booted him from my room, not wanting to be his personal Warhammer Wiki any longer as my thoughts started swirling. I pnned and schemed, making a thousand plots about ‘what ifs’, taking into account each way I thought this situation could develop.
As I did, I stared at my illusory Guilliman, staring into those unforgiving blue eyes that hid a bone-deep weariness from carrying the fate of a million worlds on his shoulder. I wonder what he’s been up to since we parted ways.
