Editing The Tales of the Emperasque: Part Twelve (section)

==0-099-001-M42==
“WELL I APPRECIATE YOUR CONCERN, FARSEER. I DON’T WANT YOU TO COME AWAY FROM THIS THINKING THAT ALL HUMAN CORSAIRS ARE UNDER OUR CONTROL. BUT LAST TIME I CHECKED, MANY ELDAR CORSAIRS ARE IN FACT LOYAL TO THEIR CRAFTWORLDS, AND WILL RETURN TO SUPPORT THEIR NAVIES IF CALLED UPON TO DO SO,” the Emperor said.<br>
“Very true, just as human privateers and raiders will sometimes help harass the vessels of those attacking human planets,” Taldeer shot back.<br>
“YOU CAN HARDLY COMPARE THE TWO. WE KILL HUMAN RAIDERS WHEN WE SEE THEM AND CONFISCATE THEIR LUCRE. ELDAR PIRATES WHO SUCCESSFULLY RAID HUMAN SHIPPING LINES GET A PAT ON THE BACK.”<br>
“As they wash the blood of my men from their hands,” Commodore Romes said bitterly.<br>
Taldeer skewered him with her glare. “And as stated: if this treaty is signed into law, it will stop.<br>
“Good faith will only take you so far-” the Commodore began.<br>
“WHOA!” the Emperor suddenly yelled.<br>
“What?! What is it, my Liege?” Romes asked worriedly.<br>
“NOTHING…NOTHING THAT NEED CONCERN YOU. PLEASE CONTINUE, A VERY, VERY IMPORTANT GUEST HAS JUST ARRIVED.” The Throne icon reverted to the symbol of the Aquilla, and the High Lords looked amongst each other worriedly.<br>
The Emperor stared at the Warp Rift opening mere meters from him in complete shock. The Custodes abandoned their vigil and ran for the Rift, all drawing weapons.<br>
“STAND DOWN, MY LOYAL FRIENDS, STAND DOWN…THIS IS NO FOE.”<br>
“My Liege? It is a Warp Rift!” one of them pointed out, glaive leveled and ready to fire. “Who knows what kind of daemon…could…oh…” he trailed off at the sight of the being emerging.

A golden, winged human stepped forth, clad in gleaming armor, with a massive two-handed sword hanging from his belt. The Emperor stared at the apparition, jaw hanging open. “IT CAN’T BE.”<br>
The Rift sewed itself shut behind the angel, as the Custodes uncertainly aimed their weapons.<br>
“I am,” the angel said, his voice thin and muffled.<br>
“HOW? I NEVER SAW YOU, EVEN ONCE, ALL THIS TIME…I WATCHED YOU DIE!”<br>
“Death is a filter, my Liege, separating the strong from the weak. For the weak, it is a barrier that can not be crossed. For the strong, it is a mountain, which can be climbed, overcome, and conquered.”<br>
“…DID DANTE SEND YOU?” the Emperor asked, trying to come to grips with the man facing him.<br>
“Yes.”<br>
“WHY DID YOU COME NOW? IF YOU WERE THE SANGUINOR THIS ENTIRE TIME, WHY DID YOU NOT COME FORTH BEFORE, WHEN THERE MIGHT HAVE BEEN TIME TO HALT AND REVERSE MY DECAY?”<br>
“What could be done? I am more than the sum of my components, but even I can not reverse time,” the angel said, its voice brimming with regret.<br>
“WHAT WAS DONE TO ME WAS NOT DONE BY TIME. WHAT WAS DONE TO ME – AND YOU – WAS DONE BY TREASON, BETRAYAL, AND FOUL CHAOS.”<br>
“True. But I am here. Now. When things…change so much. I have seen a great crossroads in my visions, yes…but never have we been so close to it,” the angel said earnestly.<br>
“A CROSSROADS…INDEED. WELL…THEN I MUST KNOW, IF I AM TO TRUST THESE VISIONS. IF YOU REMOVE THAT MASK, WHO WILL BE UNDER IT?”

“A face. That face hides two souls. As it must.”<br>
“SUCH SACRIFICE…NOW AND THEN,” the Emperor said, suddenly flooded with a sadness he could not conceal. The angel’s gaze dropped, and the Custodes looked at one another uncertainly. “YOU SHAME ME.”<br>
“Do not be ashamed. We have both made catastrophic mistakes, my Father.” The man unclamped his mask and removed it, revealing a face marred by brutal and vivid scarring.<br>
“WHOSE BODY DO YOU INHABIT, MY SON? HE IS CLEARLY A BLOOD ANGEL.”<br>
“In my original service, he was my greatest warrior. He was Azkaellon. He was my Herald and my Bearer,” the man said, the scars over his mouth twisiting the words and muffling them.<br>
“YES…I REMEMBER HIM. HE WAS EVER YOUR FRIEND. HE WAS A GREAT AND GIFTED WARRIOR.”<br>
“He would be honored to hear you say it, Father. When he was dying, his soul met mine, and he gladly gave his broken and ruined body to me, to sustain me in some form,” the angel said, gesturing to massive, red-tinged marks on the gleaming metal of his armor. The damage was long gone, but its remains were clearly visible.<br>
“TWO SOULS IN ONE BODY…I AM AWARE OF THE MADNESS THAT CAN BRING, MY SON. I AM GLAD YOU HAVE OVERCOME IT.”<br>
“Yes, and I am glad that yours does not seem to bear any trace of the THING you now inhabit.” The scarred angel frowned. “Surely you do not need to stay in that body?”<br>
“I ACTUALLY DO, FOR NOW. FEAR NOT. WHEN MY IMPERIUM HAS STABILIZED ENOUGH THAT MY ABSENCE FOR NINE MONTHS WILL NOT DESTROY IT, I WILL DIE AND BE REBORN.”<br>
“That’s reassuring. I don’t know how long I could bear that visage,” the angel said wryly. He smiled through his damaged face. “It’s good to see time has not eroded your humor, Father.”<br>
“NOR YOURS, SANGUINIUS. WELCOME HOME.”

“Then I suppose that is that. Once the Emperor signs off on the final instruction to formalize the treaty, then you will bring it to the Councils of the various Craftworlds?” the Lord Commander Solar said wearily, rubbing his eyes.<br>
“I shall,” Taldeer said, looking over the data slate in front of her. “Lady Isha, may I ask that you do the same for the Exodites?” Taldeer continued staring at the slate for a moment longer, before looking up at the goddess. “Lady Isha?”<br>
Isha was gripping the armrests of her seat, eyes wide in shock. The High Lords glanced over curiously. “Taldeer…do you not feel that? There is something…terrible in the Throne room.”<br>
“What?” Taldeer closed her eyes and concentrated, sensing Lofn and the psychic High Lord surreptitiously doing the same. She cast her thoughts over the Throne, looking past the obvious, blazing radiance of the Emperor, and found…something.<br>
“That is unusual,” Taldeer murmured. “I presume it to be the ‘guest’ of the Emperor.”<br>
“A daemon, playing the guest to the Emperor in a daemon,” Isha said, an uncharacteristic note of bitterness in her voice.<br>
“It can not be,” the Master of Astropaths whispered, his face slack with shock.<br>
“You know this being?” the Master of Assassins asked.<br>
“We’ve never met, but I have felt it, when I was receiving a message on the Blood Angels’ behalf,” he said shortly, standing. “Inquisitor, you had better get down there.”<br>
The Inquisitorial representative cocked an eyebrow and stood. “The Sanguinor?”<br>
“So it would seem,” the Astropath hissed.

“WHAT DO YOU INTEND TO DO NOW, MY SON?”<br>
“Well, much as I’d like to, I can’t remain here and would you KINDLY point that elsewhere?” Sanguinor asked, glaring at a Custodes Terminator who had been menacing him with a Triple Assault Cannon from the moment he had arrived.<br>
The Custodian jerked his head back, looking to the Emperor for approval. The Emperor nodded. “STAND AT EASE, MY CUSTODIANS, HE IS NO THREAT TO YOU.”<br>
“As I was saying,” Sanguinor said, nodding, I can not stay. “Though it would please me to no end to do battle against Abbadon’s filth alongside you and my Angels once more, my…pact with this body is tenuous, as is its grip on this dimension. I can remain only an hour more.”<br>
“THEN I INSIST, MY SON, STAY AS LONG AS YOU CAN, REARM, AND LISTEN TO THE STATE OF THINGS,” the Emperor said, as the Custodes slowly drifted back to their posts.<br>
“Lord Dante was kind enough to explain the bizarre state of the galaxy to me when I spoke to him on Rordek, Father. Incidentally, have you heard of the catastrophe that has befallen him? Fully half the Sanguinary Guard and First Company, downed by a disastrous Hrud ambush.”<br>
“UNFORTUNATE. I’M SURE HE’S EAGER TO RETURN TO BAAL AND REBUILD,” the Emperor said. “AND NO, I HAD NOT HEARD.”

Suddenly, a loud creaking from the hinges of the Eternity Gate announced another visitor. The Inquisitorial representative of the High Lords charged in, running for the Emperor.<br>
“My Liege, be warned! There is a…oh.” He came to a bashful halt. “I…guess you already know. All right then…I’ll take my leave,” he mumbled, turning back to the door. The Emperor watched him go with bemusement.<br>
“WHAT A STERLING AND INSPIRATIONAL EXAMPLE OF THE CEASELESS VIGILANCE OF THE IMPERIUM.”<br>
“Well, in fairness, Father, I AM a daemon, technically,” Sanguinor said, shrugging his massive wings. The Custodes shifted uncomfortably. “The Inquisition has been trying to capture me for millennia.”<br>
“INDEED?”<br>
“They thought it was a sign that the Blood Angels were harboring Khorne-worshippers. Having blood and warfare be the symbols of the chapter didn’t…help disavow them of that belief.”<br>
The Emperor chuckled, an odd sound from such a massive creature. “WELL, MY SON, I WILL SEE WHAT I CAN DO IN THE REGARD OF ALLOWING YOU TO STAY LONGER. HOW LONG BEFORE YOU CAN RETURN TO TERRA AGAIN?”<br>
“The Warp is a tempestuous place, Father, as you well know. A month? A thousand decades? I do not know,” the Sanguinor said regretfully.<br>
“THEN DO STOP BY BAAL NEXT AND INTRODUCE YOURSELF FORMALLY. ACTUALLY, I HAVE TO ASK: WHY DIDN’T YOU DO THAT ALREADY?”<br>
“Because, Father, I confess that I felt a sense of shame. I failed miserably in my duty. Azkaellon felt that he had, in turn, failed me. Returning to Baal…would have been humiliating. Dante was humbling in his request that I come here at all,” Sanguinor admitted.

“DID YOU KNOW HE REINTERPRETED YOUR PROPHESY?” the Emperor asked.<br>
“Yes. I can not speak to the accuracy of his interpretation; certainly mine was wrong.” Sanguinor looked around the room in sudden dismay. “It seems I will not have time to help myself to your armories after all, Father, for my grasp on this dimension wanes.”<br>
“I UNDERSTAND. IT DID MY HEART GOOD TO SEE YOU HERE, MY SON,” the Emperor said ruefully. “DO ME A FAVOR…TELL ME; CAN YOU SEE VESSELS AS THEY TRAVEL THE WARP?”<br>
“Certainly. Why?”<br>
“IF YOU GET THE CHANCE, CAN YOU TELL ME IF VULKAN IS ALL RIGHT? HE WAS ON HIS WAY TO NOCTURNE AND COLLIDED WITH THE CARCASS OF A VOID WHALE.”
“Well…that’s a bit vague, but I can look into it if you wish,” Sanguinor said, thinking it over.<br>
“I’D APPRECIATE IT.” The Sanguinor’s form wavered for a moment, and he nodded.<br>
“I’m afraid my time is up. Farewell.”<br>
“FAREWELL, MY SON. I LOOK FORWARD TO OUR NEXT MEETING.”


''Continued in [[The Tales of the Emperasque: Part Thirteen]].

[[Category:The Tales of the Emperasque]]