Editing Story:Warhammer 60K: The Age of Dusk (section)

==Additional Background Section 27: Baal, The Nation of Red Fangs, and The Demon-Knight Mephiston==

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'''The Thanatos Tale'''
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''It begins with the cataclysm. It is the birth of stars infantile,
He, the great '''[untranslatable]''' tends the darkness and kindles them; 
He guides the stars and the rocks,
Rocks which are the Paiges of the suns; second-born descendants of plasma furnaces.
Life is risen from the lifeless garden. The '''[untranslatable]''' dies away, remembered by all save a few
The Lonely souls; Celestial gatekeepers who take his mantle.
There is strife; recursive forever. 
It begins with the two ancient breeds. They foster hate in the hearts of lesser things,
They cast the Kiasoz upon the beast between planes, and drive it into nothingness,
They bring war but are themselves overcome by their lowly allies. Unforeseen consequences. Butterfly wings.
The first-born children of fire are usurped. Splintered into prisons. Two sleep long eons
The Second-born bring forth that which was always sleeping. The permeation between worlds,
The Long-scream. It turned from a mirror to a pit. The Madness of '''[untranslatable]''' once lived in every world,
Permeating all through this mirror of soul-fire.
But the strife brought forth the first of them. The second-born died away, but they did not perish.
Once the wheel is turning, nothing can stop it; the more it grows, the more it feeds, the more it grows. The warping realm, the Ne-'''[DO NOT TRANSLATE!]'''
The first is shrouded and quiet; malignancy shrouded. It causes the conflict; sets up the great game. It is the number ten, for it is the tenth movement, but the first chronological step on the road to dissolution.
Then comes transmutation. The changing of borders and alliances, of friends and foes and family. Change and change until nothing can catch you. It is hope, but bears the visage of the vulture, for it feasts upon the folly of this futile desire. It is the ninth.
War. The horns of the beast take shape, pushing up further from the deep. Blood and pain and the hands of a murdered brother. It bears the holy number eight.
Faster now, they build. Pestilence. The mortals become aware of the pattern, in their hearts if not their minds. Woe feeds, pulling itself up, upwards ever spiraling. The seventh movement is revealed.
A pregnant pantheon eats itself from the inside out. Its remains infest the shadows while She Thirsts for more. A sixth movement. Holy number six.
Faster, ever faster. The manifold man bearing a fist of star-forged Iron. Five fingers of the fist, fifth movement through the pattern.
Faster still, dissolution spreads. The one named Maker makes his greatest work. A forge of souls births a golem of utter-[the translation totally breaks down here, but I think this is the fourth movement. I cannot make out the rest of the text. But look! See what everyone else has missed! The numbers! The holy numbers are getting smaller, everytime. What does this mean? And what will happen if we reach the final number? I dread to think...]'' 


'''[Chronicle Pauses]'''

'''[Chronicle resumes.]'''

How long was I sleeping? I feel as if I have slept for centuries. I had troubled dreams; shapes that hide just out of sight. They cloy like melting tar in my mind.
I look upon my notes, and see I have written many sections since my last. But they are not in order. But I am drawn to the account of Mephiston. I feel...
I have to begin here before I can categorize the rest of my notes.
(''Where are my guards? They were here before I slept. I do not recognize this part of the Library...'')



The realm of the Blood Knights of Baal stretched between the eastern borders of Huron’s realm, and the desolation of the north-eastern fringe of the galaxy, long ruined by thousand sof years of horrific warfare between the great xenos empires of the Thexians, Tau and Necrons.

Unlike many of the human empires that survived the Age of Strife, this realm of blood and twisted grandeur was neither destroyed nor subsumed by the expansive efforts of the Vulkan Imperium or its more malevolent neighbours.

The gore-soaked domain of the Baalites was independent of its fellow powers, a unique realm which was simultaneously terrible yet organised. Upon every world, there rose towers and bastion sculpted in baroque fashion. They loomed over every settlement and establishment where the humans thralls of the Blood-Knights lived. There was precious little crime or discord within these thrall settlements. Those foolish or incautious enough to make themselves known as criminal elements vanished in the darkness soon after; dragged into the draining pits below the towering Sanguinary towers, where their blood was used to feed the inhuman rulers of this realm.

For the Blood Knights, though they had once been Astartes, were Astartes no longer. Their Red Thirst, the desire for drinking human blood, had become an all-consuming necessity amongst their kind. The Priesthood of Baal, under the direction of the monster Mephiston, had crafted a mutagenic virus which had quenched the Black Rage amongst his brothers entirely, but this has somehow driven their thirst to become something different. It became a psychic contagion, fuelling and distorting the Blood Angels and their cursed siblings. They no longer fed upon flesh, relying only upon human vitae to sustain their forms. This subsequently altered their physical appearance. 

A diet of blood could not sustain the hulking form of an Astartes; only masses of protein could do this. Instead, the Bloodknights became lithe, muscular beasts. Psychic energy kept their bodies strong as adamantine, and made their red eyes weep with blood constantly. With such a major change in their physiology, their armour was also altered to fit this lithe form. They remade their power armour in the style of gothic knights of old, wreathed in sculpted suits that looked like skinned bodies threaded with horns and whimpering faces. 

They expanded their realm rarely, but when they did the Bloodknights were a nightmare. First they would thread the atmosphere of a world with iron oxide. Once the skies turned the angry red of spilled blood, the Knights would descend on their gunships like a swarm of hungry bats, followed swiftly by their demented Thralls. Cities became terrible charnel houses as they fed upon half the planet’s population in a single week of bloodletting. The survivors were spared, and converted to the cause of the Bloodknights by prolytzing thralls and Sanguinary preachers. Each world would rise from the blood-hungry destruction inflicted upon them by their new masters. New artwork and sculptures would be commissioned and set up. The Bloodknights believed themselves to be civilised creatures, and desired a realm of culture, no matter how perverse or bizarre it seemed. This realm became known to many across the northern rim as the ‘Nation of Red Fangs’; a realm of contradiction and fear. Yet, it was a functioning one all the same.

The average mortal citizen of the Nation was strange indeed. Brought up on the concept of violence and death, they were a servile and death-obsessed folk. Yet, they remained cheerful and adoring of their monstrous masters, yet were easily swayed by any sufficiently terrifying figure. 

But even this realm could not remain unchanged by circumstances occurring across the galaxy. When the Thexians fell, the Nation of Red Fangs saw a steep increase in Cythor Fiend infiltrators. These shape-shifting vampires were oddly suited to hiding amongst a populace of humans willing to bend their knees to vampiric beasts. These terrors set themselves up as underground figures of myth. Many times they attempted to infiltrate and subvert the Bloodknight elite, but they failed consistently, remaining as mythic ghoul-kings hiding in plain sight within the looming gothic towers and oxidised skies of the Red Angels’ realm.

The vast alien vessel, known only as ‘wailing doom’ passed through this realm during the wars between the arisen Khaine-beast and the Destroyer cults in the eastern regions. As it passed, it spawned a madness in the human populace; a peculiar viciousness which even surprised the Bloodknights. Families murdered one another and streets within cities became impromptu battlegrounds for surreal and pointless kin-strife. Only the severe punishment of all involved quashed this demented psychic plague. The Knights fed well that year. Some chroniclers assumed these were Khornate cults, but Khainite cults are subtly different. They did not kill in Khaine’s name, but rather killed because Khaine’s fractured mind touched theirs. It was not worship, but rather compulsion.

(I find it disturbing that so many vampiric races make their homes in this region. Not just the Bloodknights, Cythor Fiends and the Khainite cults; there were also the Thexian Elites and even the realm of the Flayed Ones. Why do they gather around the Ghoul Stars? What is it about those sectors? I may never fully understand. Perhaps this is for the best?)

The greatest threat to this empire however, came from their western neighbor; the Blackheart himself. This threat came not through war as one might expect. The warp, as ever, is nothing if not subversive. The Maelstrom expanded greatly, until even the shallows of the storm spanned the Eastern Chaos Imperium, and lapped against the borders of the Bloodknights. Cults and mutants grew in frequency and potency during this nightmarish expansion. In the wake of this tide of dissolution came the Red Corsairs and their minions. But instead of war, they spoke of alliance. They spoke of the spoils of war and the feast of a lifetime.

The leader of this band of savage ambassadors was a creature known as Zelphagor, a Corsair Captain of some renown. Upon his belt he bore the helmets of many slain Astartes; unspoken testament to his power and prowess. But he also brought with him the word of a new faith; a new patron unlike anything which had come before. On one shoulder pad he bore Huron’s insignia, but upon his other shoulder was a tome. And within the tome was a yawning abyss, which seemed to burrow through his entire body and into another, unknowable realm. Zelphagor had once been a Word Bearer, then a Corsair. At that moment, he was both, but also something greater. A herald of a new word. Long had there been rumors that Lorgar the Golden was writing a new book; a new revelation granted him by the deep warp itself. The final testament of the Word.

To Mephiston’s credit, the demon knight tried to kill Zelphagor as soon as he entered Baalite-owned space. Few of his Corsairs survived the naval action, but somehow the vile Chaos marine managed to stave off destruction. He even managed to get the inhuman beast Mephiston to bend his ear to him.

The Corsair captain spoke of a galactic endeavor; a great undertaking which would sweep the galaxy free of the hated Necrons, the warmongering Krork and even the crushing fist of the Star Father. He spoke of liberation, but the subtext was that those who chose not to be ‘free’ in this manner, would be enslaved. Thus the wishes of all would be ‘granted’ either way. The Bloodknights could lead this new, final Black Crusade. In exchange, they could feast upon the galaxy and finally quench their thirst.

Such an alliance would have obviously been a nightmare for the galaxy at large. Thankfully, there were factions working against the Demon Knight. The King of the Fire-Birds (no; Asurmen. Why did I...?) had arrived within the Nation of Red Fangs, with his psyker prize and his Avengers in tow. But they were subtle and hid themselves at first.

It was here that the waifish psychic child that Fire Bi- that Asurmen saved from the Krork, demonstrated her usefulness beyond her ability to absorb the dying memories of the dead and passed-on. Using her psychic abilities she could fit into Baalite society without suspicion; bringing Asurmen’s Avenger’s supplies and information about the empire while the eldar remained hidden. They, in turn, grew fond of the childish mon-keigh. I remember how the Aspect warrior, when their war masks were removed, would teach the witch of eldar runic language and of the myriad shapes a psychic projection could make. It was a friendship, of sorts as I recall.

But the forces of Lorgar were hungry and hunting. Huron had an alliance with a vile Eldar renegade known as Slicus, who Zelphagor had on the hunt for the Phoenix Lord. His dark eldar prowled the shadowy crimson cities of the Red Fang Nations, utilising unknown technologies to track the eldar hidden in the grimly ornate cities of Mephiston’s minions. The Bloodknights despised eldar, but Mephiston insisted on their cooperation... for the time being...

Asurmen and his small band of warriors made their way across the sector by hiding their wondrous armour beneath drab sackcloths, or sequestered themselves amongst storage units and onboard merchant freighters. Their target was the gory metropolis of Baal itself, and the tower of the infamous Master of Death. Only the psyker could move through the streets relatively unmolested, for she was small and her telepathy allowed her to mask herself from casual observation.

But the forces of the Corsairs were more far reaching and terrible than the child could have forseen. Daemons of the undying vortex tracked the psychic emanations of Asurmen’s hunting party like sharks sensing the passing of a shoal of prey animals. Even the Librarians of the Bloodknights were not adept enough to find the soul-light of a handful of souls amidst the supernova-glare of the teeming billions of thralls who toiled beneath their capricious yoke.

Asurmen was finally cornered at the Port of the beheaded, a starport on Baal’s southern hemisphere. Thousands upon thousands of Thralls assaulted his position. Thousands died, as the Phoenix King threw off his disguise. Shuriken filled the air in a great storm, slaying all who closed upon his position. At his side, his Avengers fired their own catapults, adding to the furious deluge. In terror, the child hid herself. I remember how she threw herself beneath a mountain of cold cylindrical containers, covering her eyes to block out the images of death and ruin that flooded her mind. But her mind was a psychic battery, capturing the dying moments of so many mortal souls. The thralls each had hopes and dreams, each were quashed as they died. They were crazed in their devotion to their demi-god masters. 

But in death, everyone was the same, no matter what they claimed. No matter how stoic or brave a being became, in that last instant of life, there was always a shriek of formless panic; futile as it was heartbreaking. Even the worst monster felt fear at the end.

However, amidst the deathly howls of the thralls, the witch picked out the final thoughts of the commanders and generals of this doomed army of mortal men.

They were there to pin the Phoenix in place. Before I could warn them, the trap was sprung. Zelphagor’s priests had placed offensive obelisks around the port, carved from the very stuff of nightmares. They fused and poisoned the ground itself as packs of possessed monsters and mutants hauled them into place. Their couriers died moments later; flesh puckering and flowing into impossible forms. But once in place, the veil weakened, like rubber stretched beyond its elastic limit.

Within this octagonal region, the barrier between worlds was sundered. Daemons flooded into the area, ripping down the grand towers like locusts eating corn. The surviving thralls were toyed with by the daemons before their bodies and souls were devoured. The Avengers fought back to back, taking up human weapons when their own were finally spent. Dameons flooded their ramparts and scratched at their minds. The girl wailed in pain, as I felt the dreadful essence of the warp fiends pushing their way from nightmare into actuality.

But Asurmen was with them. Wherever his blade fell, no daemon could survive. Burning devil-flesh splashed and scorched the flasgstones in hellish rivers of sulfur and liquid madness. The things shrieked, not only in pain. They cackled in mockery of the undying Lord of the Asur. For the obelisks were not intended to bring forth mere daemons, no matter how deep within the warp they had dragged themselves up from. 

The Draziin-Maton came. They stepped from the walls themselves, formless yet physical beyond measure. There were three of them, but there were ten of them, but there were more. Numbers were impossible to calculate. Purple flesh that was wraithbone but hideously distorted punctured reality and pumped its venom into our universe like the stinger of a wasp. Hideous forms, skeletal spiders with tendrils and frond; but they had no faces. Only horror. The air rebelled at their presence, turning to black ash, or sprouting wings itself somehow.

Asurmen fought them at once, a glimmering figure of golden fire amidst the enclosing nightmare. Time spooled back upon itself. Asurmen fought them in the period before life evolved, and into the far future, after the death of the black dwarf stars. The girl survived; clasped to the bosom of a sole-surviving Dire Avenger, whose eyes bled as he whimpered ancient eldar myth songs into my ear.

Somehow, amidst this furious assault, Asurmen managed to destroy the obelisks, one after another. Robbed of their sustenance, the Draziin-maton fed upon the wailing daemons who still lingered on this plane, before plunging into the warp after their newfound prey.

Battered but unbowed, Asurmen advanced through the city, with his final two companions trailing in his wake.

He turned his attentions towards the spires of the Bloodknights. But the Knights had already anticipated his attention. Devastator squads and orsair havocs poured fire upon Asurmen from every angle. Missiles corkscrewed through the burning air, las bolts flashed in the darkness and bolter rounds unleashed a nightmarish chorus as they surged towards the stricken Asur. He was too weary to deflect or overcome all of this ordnance. Not even the eternal warrior could best an arsenal.

He was struck, again and again. The witch-girl shrieked, but was held back by the last Avenger, known as Kassosril. He wept as he watched his master fall to his knees. Plasma bolts encased him in blinding fire, as missile impacts broke apart his armour, scattering the bejewelled fragments across the ground like discarded trinkets. His helm was the last to fall. His body was dust and his armour was left in a mangled heap.

Kassosril leapt up, charging towards the battered armour, but he was brought down by Bloodknights, who swept down to street level on their winged jump packs, before they beat the alien warrior into submission. The girl struggled hopelessly in the grasp of her captors but to no avail.

Asurmen was dead.

The girl was taken into captivity like a troublesome wild cat, scratching ineffectually at the huge vampire beasts that handled her. The last avenger suffered a far worse fate. Upon an altar of ossified bone, before a vast crowd of jeering thralls, the eldar was chained, stripped and brutalised. Pict images of the captured eldar were shown across Baal, whipping its populace into a hateful frenzy of feasting, bloodletting and the drinking of fluids, narcotic and otherwise. Even the twisted eldar nobleman watched this spectacle from his ship. Yet, this amateurish scene of depravity barely fired his soul and the Duke swiftly grew bored. He summoned one of his Trueborn minions, known as Korsha; a clawed fiend modified by the Covens to be a master of infiltration and base larceny. The Serpent knew his alliance with the humans would not hold for long. Soon, he would have to flee, or be destroyed. Yet, Sliscus would not leave Baal empty handed.

The baalites and their Corsair allies were more easily enamoured by the public torture; cackling and cheering with every fresh spasm of misery that erupted from the broken alien. Their sneering mockery was only silenced when Mephiston himself appeared.

A slender figure, Mephiston moved with perfect posture. He looked like a statue of alabaster; only his crimson, weeping eyes tarnished his perfect image. Great skull pauldrons adorned his sculpted armour, while a psychic hood reared from his back, forming a crown of horned skulls. A cloak of deep purple and red whipped about his body with a life of its own. Flanking him, the Librarians of his court came, each bearing a winged skull helmet painted in the colour of dried blood. The very air crackled with lightning. His mortal followers fell to their knees as if compelled by his mere presence, while his assembled Bloodknights merely saluted him silently.

Zelphagor followed him. The captain was a hulking, hunched beast, easily larger than Mephiston, but Mephiston’s power was undeniable. He made Zelphagor seem so very small in comparison.

The Master of Death gently placed his massive gauntlet beneath the chin of the dying eldar. His merciless features burned into Kassosril’s own.

“Know this,” Mephiston said softly, his voice effortlessly powerful despite this. “When the seed of your race is wiped from this galaxy, and it shall be, be certain that you will have achieved nothing of worth. Your sacrifice shall be so wonderfully... futile.”

And with that, Mephiston ripped the soul stone from the avenger’s chest, and destroyed it with a gesture. Kassosril shrieked with a pain no mortal wound could ever match. Mephiston silenced the soul-banished thing with a gesture. A single backhanded sweep took his head from his shoulders, and pitched Kassosril’s body from the altar, into the crowd. There, he was torn apart.

Mephiston took the armour of Asurmen to his vaults. Zelphagor protested. He claimed the Phoenix Lord’s armour was Lorgar’s. Zelphagor confronted the Master of death within his own throne room, at the apex of the spire

“You would deny me my prize?” Mephiston replied coldly, inhuman eyes regarding the chaos Lord dispassionately.

“If it were not for the actions of my patron’s allies, you would have no prize at all.”

Mephiston snarled. “Yes, allies; allies who created a warp vortex upon my throneworld! Allies who seek to corrupt my people! Those allies?”

Zelphagor was unfazed by the Bloodknight. His Corsairs trained their bolters upon the Bloodknights, who prowled on the periphery of the chamber.

“The primarchs compel you... nay, the very gods compel you!” the twisted preacher hissed.

Mephiston gestured to an archway, that loomed high above his own throne like a terrible banner. As he did, lumen globes ignited around the grotesque spectacle. Bound with bonds of serrated iron and runic wards that burned eternally, Zelphagor saw a figure. A winged figure. A winged figure that seemed to phase in and out of reality. Only its immortal expression of sheer agony and horror remained a constant. It was the Sanguinor; humbled and broken by profane sorcery and mutagenic viruses.

Even the vile Zelphagor was taken aback at this sight.

“You tell me Corsair; how much do I care for Gods and Primarchs? How much do I care?” Mephiston shrieked, his fanged jaws distending as he bellowed in the chaos space marine’s face.

“You are insane! You would mutilate the memory of your fallen primarch! You are a godless heathen!”

“Nay, I am a saviour. The black rage can touch us not, for we have forgotten our father’s doom. We banished it from our very blood. I mastered the Black Rage. And I recognize no higher authority.”

As Mephiston revealed his true nature, Zelphagor’s Corsairs realized the danger. But even as they targeted the surrounding knights, it was too late. Bolters boomed in the gloomy half-light. The gun battle lasted barely five minutes. By the end, Zelphagor’s upper echelons were slain. In orbit, defence lasers scythed his capital ship in half, and scattered his escorts into the void. The Corsairs were destroyed, and it appeared the Duke had fled also.

But the agents of the Duke were not vanished. Korsha moved through the dungeon vaults of the tower of Mephiston, modified claws silent as he scuttled through the shadows, searching out his prize. The girl sensed the eldar nearing her, but she recoiled as Korsha passed by, for she saw with her witch’s sight the true nature of the outwardly beautiful monster; a withered husk of hate and loathing, coiled around a vile shard of a soul. Like a cloud across the sun, a chill passed through her at his mere presence. But, he had not come for her. He had come to steal the armor of Asurmen. Sliscus greatly desired the Phoenix Lord’s bodiless form, for then he could torment the helpless demi-god for all time.

Korsha was a being crafted to be a pure killing machine. It killed the guards around the vaults one after another; striking like a viper form the shadows, before dissolving again each time. His soul was invigorated by each kill, only making the leech stronger and stronger. Finally, he used his cunning to baffle the defenses of the tech vault. At last, he held the sculpted helm of Asurmen in his hand.

Ambition and inspiration struck then. What if Korsha could take the armor for himself? Then he would gain the power of a god, and strike down the Duke and all his rivals in one fell swoop. The corsair fleet would be his! With malicious glee, the dark one donned the armor of Asurmen, cackling as he finally placed the helmet over his scalped head slowly.

In that instant, the armor sealed itself in a blaze of glorious golden light. Korsha’s scream of alarm lasted but a moment, before he was instantly consumed within the great meta-soul of Asurmen himself. With a gesture, the diresword swept into his hand deftly, throwing itself through the air in response to its summons. Already, the Bloodknights were gathering to oppose Asurmen, drawing their bolters as they massed before the thick vault doors. Asurmen carved his way through the door with only three mighty blows, sending the lump of metal careering into the massed vampire formation. It took them barely a second to recover, but by that time Asurmen had leapt into combat with them.

Each bloodknight was a slender fiend, stronger and faster than most Astartes could hope to be, but Asurmen was faster. Bolters chattered and roared in the gloom of the deep vaults, their flashing discharges illuminating the corridors in strobing madness. The bloodknights roared in bestial fury, their human faces contorting as glistening fangs were barred in bloodied maws.

Asurmen fought with an economy of moves, slaying each foe as quickly and decisively as possible, before sprinting away from any counterattack, before striking at another foe with fluid grace and merciless efficiency. The combat was almost like a dance, with only one performer hitting all the correct marks, while the others floundered in his wake. A human watching this battle would have scarcely followed the movements at all, lost in the frantic chaos unleashed all around the lightning quick melee.

Asurmen fought his way back through the vault. The child was saved. I remember his glorious golden form, carving through the misshapen demons in their gargoyle-plate, screaming monsters utterly unafraid of the Phoenix Lord, even as his glowering blade severed their heads and pierced their hearts. The child followed the deathless warrior, like a ship caught in a tidal wake.

The Phoenix Lord was rising through the tower, attracting ever greater resistance. Heavy weapon teams locked off access points, while fire teams sought to outflank him. Asurmen could not be contained or herded however; he carved through the floors themselves, unleashing whirlwinds of shuriken, scything down his foes were perfectly placed incisions that cut arteries and severed joints.

Eventually, the Bloodknights were called off; Asurmen was given a free route straight towards his target; Mephiston.

The King of Baal sat aside his throne of polished basalt, a sinister grin stitched across his face like a bloody wound. In the half-light, he seemed at first to be alone, but once Asurmen and the girl entered, he was clearly not.

His fellow Librarians emerged from their hidden shaded dells. The chamber was sealed, and Mephiston instantly launched his assault. A tidal wave of fire flowed from his eyes as he screamed a monstrous challenge. Asurmen was flung backwards with the force of a battlecannon strike, but Tethesis broke the flames around him, protecting the girl as she bolted into cover. 

The other Librarians of Mephiston unleashed their powers upon the eldar demi-god at once; lightning arced from their hands, clouds of biting imps and scorching blizzards of blood seared his ornate form. Esoteric energies played over the blade of the Phoenix Lord. His catapults were firing, but the fiery deluge melted each implement moments before they struck. Only his armour and his blade were proof against such a bombardment. Mephiston laughed maliciously as he slowly rose form his throne, drawing his own psychically-attuned blade from its scabbard with a flourish.

The psykers held back further assaults once their master entered the fray. But they were not idle. They weaved their enchantments and warpish techniques, slowly the flow of time for all save their Lord and master.

Mephiston raised his plasma pistol, and Asurmen was only just able to dodge the searing energy bolt as it whistled past his helm; he was slower. Time was against Asurmen, he realized then. Nevertheless, he attacked. He was still a ferociously swift fighter, even if he was no longer impossibly agile. His first blow hacked the pistol in two. Mephiston turned aside Tethesis, bisecting the catapults upon the Phoenix Lord’s wrists in the process. Psychic blade met psychic blade, a duel of minds as much as a physical contest and Mephiston was powerful. He had experience and the support of ancient psykers who had knowledge to rival even Tzeentchian sorcerers. Asurmen had the might of a million churning souls in his furnace of a soul, but psychic duels were not his natural habitat.

The walls melted and crackled with fire as they wrestled and fenced between scorching pyres and ruined decorations.

“Why must you torment me so xenos?” Mephiston hissed, in soul and through voice. “Why must our lives be defined by violence and destruction? I built this empire and saved my people!”

Asurmen spoke calmly, even as he deflected a flurry of terrible blows that should have beheaded mountains.

“You saved no one. This is a lie. You have forgotten...”

“Oh how I loathe you and your kind; idealists and demagogues! Spare us your morals! We wish to be left alone! Who are you to judge us, oh alien abomination? You birthed a hell god, and I fostered a stable realm!” Mephiston interrupted defiantly, kicking Asurmen across the chamber.

Beyond this phenomenally rapid duel, the girl crawled towards her objective. She could see it; the caged angel. The forgotten despair.

Mephiston and his acolytes poured more power into the combat, empowering Mephiston as Asurmen backed away, furiously deflecting countless attacks. The librarians engaged in combat now too, force swords and staffs pummelling Asurmen’s defences from all angles of approach. Even the swiftest warrior could not weather such relentless attacks. Asurmen began to falter.

The girl; Vasiri. That was her name! I know it as well as I recall my own name. She was safe from the Librarians, for they were too consumed in defeating the alien warlord. Vasiri placed her hands upon the figure of golden light, with wondrous wings of swan-like white. It was not real, but real at once. She knew then what her purpose was. Why Asurmen the fire-bird brought her to such a dismal, hideous place of grandeur and gore.

Her power was to commune with the dead. My power was to absorb the dying memories of those departed fro the endless sea. I... I...

I see it! With my waking eyes! Baleful eyes everywhere! The dead and the dying mewling on the floor of this ship. It writhes like a maggot; alive and hungry for souls. Discordant doom blaring. I am strong; heinously strong, but I am losing. My might is crumbled, like castles in decay. It rises, a behemoth. I know his name, but i cannot speak it, nor think it through the pain! The claw closes, the worlds are swirling now.

Chink in the plate. Meaningless but forever recalled. I fall, rebounding from the putrid floor. Feathers flutter by my side, to fall and settle upon expanding pools of viscous blood; my own. Through bleary eyes and seared soul-flesh, I see fate decided upon a father’s love. Golden-white light, versus the spectrum shattered into impossible hues. Titans duel and gods wrestle. Minds burn each other as bodies break. Crystal tears fall from both sides.

A sliver of compassion and hope trickles away; tossed aside by the towering figure of gold. All that is good is gone, leaving only an unbreakable core. The Anathema rises from the ruins of the one who was once a father. It is glorious and terrible, and it destroys the behemoth for all time, in all planes. The action makes the ruinous ones wail and flee. Two husks fall. Only one is alive.

There is another giant. He enters the fray too late; far too late. His black blade his broken over his knee, as he wails like an orphan, clutching at the husk-father. As the winged angel dies in a cloud of feathers, he witnesses the final speech of the Anathema. The Bastion-keeper listens well, but unknown to all, the Angel hears this too. I hear what he hears, feel what he feels at the end of time. The end of his time. He knows the inner workings of the throne. He knows how to build it. He knows the secret to creating one of the God-maker thrones. One of the Golden Thrones of the Old Race. Yet, his learned knowledge died with him. No one was there to take his thoughts.

Until now... 

I recoiled form the memory, drawn across time and space in a perfect line connecting eons. I now knew all that Sanguinius had known in his final moments. But with this knowledge came a terrible price. Alongside the awaken dream flooded the horror of his earlier doom.

Mephiston staggered back from Asurmen, his eyes wide with fright.

“Horus! '''HORUS'''!” he shrieked, desperately shielding his throat from phantom, grasping claws. The Librarian felt this too, screaming as they ripped each other apart, calling out the Arch-traitor’s name as they destroyed each other.

In the confusion, Asurmen swept me from the tower. The realm of Red Fangs did not last long after that day. It broke down into factions; many of the Bloodknights lost their minds to the Black Rage, effectively beheading the leadership of the realm. Only the youngest Knights were spared, and their inexperience led to years of conflicts. Mephiston and his minions were sealed in their tower by their more sane brethren, there to languish in madness for the rest of their days. Even those spared the black rage were doomed however, for without the techniques Maphiston had learned to control their rages, their twisted geneseed began to fail en mass. The humans of this realm began to see their leaders as the flawed, defeated monsters they were, and drove them out. A few repentant creatures threw themselves on the mercy of Vulkan’s Imperium, while others lost all trace of humanity and became ghoulish demons in tattered armor, haunting the ghoul stars alongside Cythor fiends and Khainite cannibal cults.

As for me, I remember now where I went; where i was taken. I recall the three men who met me. A harlequin man in shimmering garb, a man named Jack the Dragon who bore dark eyes, and a third man who was no man at all. They took me through the webway. My knowledge was valuable beyond measure.

I was to guide in the reconstruction of the Golden Throne; I was to bring back he who was lost.

How can I know this? I am not this girl, yet I feel as if I have lived her life. I am confused.

I shall brood upon this matter. 

I must finish my chronicle, but I fear what will happen to me now, once I complete it.
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