Editing Darius Cyaxares (section)

==Youth==
Darius Cyaxares was one of the thirty Primarchs created in the Emperor's laboratory deep beneath the Himalayzian Mountains.  As he and his brothers gestated in their pods, the malfeasance of the Ruinous Powers stole away all save Hektor and sent tumbling through the Warp.  Lost to the Emperor and tumbling beyond space and time, Darius Cyaxares' containment pod was damaged and the infant awakened to gaze upon the madness of the Immateria.  The sight forever changed his eyes, leaving them sightless pools of shifting, liquid silver.

[[File:Sci fi landscape speedpaint by incineratedmortality-d48ffqr.jpg|thumb|right|250px|The outskirts of Pulvar and the wastes of Simurgh]]
Darius' damaged capsule crashed nearby the hive '''Pulvar''' on the planet '''Simurgh'''.  Aristocrats and merchants of Pulvar were busy with their amusements and noticed nothing.  The soldiers saw the light in the sky and decided it was a problem for the aviators, the aviators saw the object falling towards the ground and thought the soldiers would deal with it.  Pulvar's workmen heard the crash, but were busy with their duties.  It was only the ''Gosheni'' - the tinkers and scavengers of Simurgh - who came out to investigate.  The band that laid claim to Darius' pod were well-pleased at their find, thinking that the valuable materials could slowly be sold off to fill their bellies.  All were surprised to hear the soft cooing of an infant from within, and immediately began a discussion of to do with him.  Some felt that he would only be a liability to the group.  But dark-haired Bithia declared that the infant had been sent from the heavens to replace the one she had lost that same day, and those who had wished Darius gone from their ranks were too ashamed to deny her.

For a time, Bithia boasted of the heaven-sent nature of her adopted son and her kin were skeptical.  Yet the more perceptive of the Gosheni took note that Darius was perhaps even more extraordinary than his mother claimed.  Just a month after being rescued from his containment pod, Darius resembled was the size of a four year-old and spoke with the fluency and insight of an adult.  This swift maturation and prodigy soon convinced all who met him that the child was something supernatural.  Many wondered at how his blindness hindered him little, for his other senses were extraordinarily sharp.  More extraordinary still was his gift of prophecy.  Darius' advice, though sometimes obscure, came to be sought out throughout Pulvar until the Hive's ruler, '''Ashpenaz the Golden''', summoned the Primarch for an audience.  Unlike the others who had requested the Primarch's advice Ashpenaz was not accustomed to asking for anything.  He simply demanded that Darius serve him directly as a seer and in any other capacity the tyrant desired.

Darius rejected Ashpenaz, telling the tyrant, ''"It is not my fate to serve you.  We shall both render service unto my Father who dwells above, although only my sons will remember your name."''  This drove the autocrat into a rage and he had his guards drag the Emperor's son to the torture chamber.  Though the Primarch could easily have slain his assailants, he meekly put himself in their hands and endured the lash and the rack for three days.  At the end, the torturers of Pulvar could only report that they now wept whenever they thought of their old craft.

[[File:Cyborg_by_molee.jpg|thumb|200px|Cyber-gladiator of Pulvar]]
Asphenaz the Golden realised that Darius could not be broken, but did not yet think himself defeated.  Resigned to destroying that which he could not possess, he had the Primarch thrown into a pit of cybernetically-deformed gladiators.  These wretches were driven mad with the pain of their deadly implants, and Asphenaz had long used them to gain some amusement form the disposal of his enemies.  Yet when the gates were thrown open and the cyber-gladiators goaded towards Darius, they walked towards him with their weapons lowered and knelt at his feet, worshipping the being whose presence eased their torment.

As Darius laid a soothing hand on one of the mutilated gladiators, Ashpenaz felt his own heart shrink in his chest.  Although the tyrant was lord of Pulvar and it surrounds, his would-be victim, clad only in the patchwork robe of a Gosheni, had shown himself the master.  Ashpenaz the Golden fell to his knees and begged Darius to forgive him, but the Primarch smiled warmly in response and denied the need.  It had always been their fate to come together in this way.

Under the guidance of the Primarch, Ashpenaz sought to reform his laws and military.  But conspirators among the aristocracy, jealous of their privileges, rose up to overthrow the old tyrant.  Darius and his Gosheni family saw Ashpenaz smuggled out of Pulvar.  A small group of their followers fled to the nearby hive '''Yathrib''', where the Gosheni were many and the laws were lax.  In the depths of Yathrib, Darius and Ashpenaz (now devoted to the Primarch) trained an army of outcasts to avenge the cruelties of Pulvar.  Such an endeavour could not be kept entirely secret, even from so lax a regime as that of Yathrib, but Darius won the ordinary soldiers of the hive to his cause and they were glad to stay silent for him.  After three months of preparation, Darius came to the Magistrix of Yathrib and informed her that she would now rule in the name of his Father.  The outraged Magistrix ordered her men to throw out the upstart, but even her bodyguards had changed their loyalty.

From the victory at Yathrib, followed shortly by a campaign against Pulvar, Darius began to unify battered Simurgh.  It is said that in this time the Primarch never raised his voice in anger, let alone struck another being.  His presence and the miraculous deeds he performed swayed many to his side.  Those who stood against Darius Cyaxares swiftly learned that the Goshenis' lives in the hidden places of the planet's underhives had taught them much about stealth, raiding, and manoeuvre, all skills that could be applied to warfare.  The Gosheni struck from beneath without warning and seemed to disappear in an instant, a feat attributed to Darius' spiritual power.