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Talos walked down through a dark corridor. The Nightfall, the eighth legion’s Glorianna class battleship, was in warp transit and during the lull in combat as the ship moved from warzone to warzone, the Night Haunter had summoned Talos to his inner sanctum. It was not the first time he had been ordered to attend his primarch. Others had been called upon, most often among them were Captain Sevatar and the other members of the Kyroptera. What was strange was for the primarch to take such in an interest in such a low-ranking legionary. Unbeknownst at the time to his brethren, Talos shared in the primarch’s power of clairvoyance. When the Night Haunter learned of it, he took him into his council, eager to see what might be divulged from Talos’ prophecies.
A soft hum from the Nightfall’s machinery sounded in the air. A slight metallic smell filled Talos’ nostrils. The path to the primarch’s inner sanctum was one he had traveled before. It was at the heart of one of the ship’s command towers. Amongst the other chambers were the residences of important individuals and ‘guests’ aboard the ship, including the remembrancers which the Emperor had forced on the legion to document its history for the sake of posterity.
Talos heard the old shriveled man walking towards him before he saw him. He was tall, for a mortal, but stooped over. His hair was short and silver and only to be found on the sides of his head, the top being home to a large bald spot. His limbs were thin and lanky. He was clad in the uniform typically worn by only the highest-ranking legion serfs. In his arms was a large heavy book, which Talos recognized as one of the tomes in which the man recorded the Night Haunter’s visions. This was Ekra Trez, the primarch’s personal remembrancer. The old man held psychic talents of his own, which he used to soothe the primarch’s mind when his visions became unbearable.
“How is he?” Talos asked Trez. His visions had not foretold this summoning and he wished to know what to expect. The Night Haunter’s moods were notorious for shifting suddenly from morose and contemplative, to murderous and wrathful, to downright joyous. Or as joyous as was possible for the Night Haunter. Talos could not remember a single time in which he had seen his primarch smile.
“He summoned you?” the old man replied. “He sent me away from his sanctum, but he did not tell me why. It seems now I have found the answer. He wishes to speak to you alone.”
With those words the old man hurried past him, eager to find the safety of his own chambers. None of the mortal crew had gone missing on the upper levels of the warship, but it was not unheard of for the ship’s mortal serfs and slaves to disappear on the lower decks and never be found again. And if they were, it was usually because their remains would have to be disposed of. Ekra Trez was held in high regard by the primarch and thus held a great level of protection, even from the legionaries, but he was not eager to test his luck.
Talos walked a while further until he came upon a great pair of double doors, three times his height. They were made from adamantium mined from the legion’s home world of Nostramo. The doors had no obvious way to open them and their silver surface was etched with scenes Talos had assumed were from one of the Night Haunter’s prophecies. They depicted great battles between astartes of different legions. Flanking the doors on each side was a member of the Atramentar. The eighth legion’s elite first company who made up the primarch’s honor guard. They stood at attention in their massive cataphractii armour, which displayed grisly trophies of battle. Each of their right shoulders was decorated with the skull of a Nostraman lion. The trophy, taken from the fierce eyeless mammal of their home world, served as the first company’s sigil.
They regarded Talos as he approached but said nothing. After an uncomfortable moment of silence, Talos said “I am here to answer summons from the primarch.”
The harsh noise of the doors’ locking mechanism opening resonated, and the great doors slowly and loudly creaked open. At last, the Atramentar to the left of him spoke. “You are to wait for our lord inside.” Not another word was spoken as Talos entered the primarch’s sanctum. The doors sounded again as the they shut behind him. The locking mechanism noisily closed, ensuring that Talos could not leave.
-
Talos waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Thirty minutes. Then an hour. Then two. The primarch did not arrive.
Eventually Talos grew impatient and restless. He walked about the primarch’s sanctum. Exploring a place that before he had only seen the smallest amount of. It was a large place, the size of what would have been the home of an incredibly wealthy man back in the hive city of Nostramo Quintus, the place in which Talos was born. There were multiple chambers which were locked and sealed. Others in which there had once been furniture or other things, but now sat in ruin. Likely places in which the primarch had secluded himself in during his most intense psychic seizures. At last Talos came upon the primarch’s personal armory. It is unsealed, strange. Talos thought as he entered.
In it there were artificer weapons of such quality which Talos rarely saw. In one corner of the chamber lied a great cradle which held the Night Haunter’s personal and most frequently worn artificer mantle. Forged by master armorers of the Emperor’s own household from the finest of Terran materials, as well as Nostraman adamantium. The vambraces which held the Night Haunter’s twin lightning claws rested with the armor as well. Beside the cradle, on a raised pedestal was a supremely wrought force sword. Talos had never seen the Night Haunter actually use it in battle, but he carried it with him nonetheless.
Talos did not know what the primarch personally called his weapons and armor, but his legionaries had named them none the less. They called the twin lightning claws Mercy and Forgiveness, for the primarch used them to dispense what he saw as those things. They called the sword Judgement, the name coming from his dispensation of the Emperor’s wrath.
Talos moved closer and examined the sword more intimately. The weapon was likely made by the primarch himself. Its blade was etched with words in a script and language that Talos did not understand. Half of the handle was wire wrapped. The other half was intricately detailed with etchings. The pommel of the sword was shaped in a gilded imitation of a human skull. The sword’s guard resembled a pair of spread bat wings. Just above the guard at the base of the blade was the most striking detail.
An etching inlaid with polished gold and silver, or more likely a metal which resembled them in luster but would stand better against the wear and tear of battle. The scene on one side of the blade depicted fifteen figures, the largest and central of which Talos thought resembled the images he had seen of the Emperor himself. The figures stood together and looked as if they were singing together. On the reverse side of the blade was a different etching. It showed a scene of what looked like the same figures, but here the one that Talos thought resembled the Emperor was hobbled and crippled, bound in chains as the other fourteen forced him through a set of doors into a dark void. The meaning of the images was lost on him.
Feeling he had intruded upon too much, Talos replaced the sword.
“Curious, are you?” A baritone voice said from behind him.
Talos felt the instincts that had been genetically bred into him by his transformation into an astartes snap to life. He turned; fists raised to confront whoever had crept up on him. He hoped the shock and shame of being snuck up on wasn’t too apparent. He saw who stood before him and immediately dropped onto one knee, his eyes angled to the figure’s feet.
The Night Haunter was dressed in a rather simple robe. He was clean, his pale skin seeming to glow in the dark. His eyes, like all Nostraman-born, were so dark that you could not tell where his pupils ended and his irises began. His nails were neat, but tapered into points at the ends of his long fingers. His teeth were not quite fangs but each had a much sharper edge than was natural for a normal human. His long back hair fell freely down past his shoulders. Like all his brother primarchs, he was tall and imposing, towering over even his astartes legionaries. His body was shaped with hard and inhumanly strong muscles. His face had a sharp jaw, high cheekbones, a proud nose, long eyelashes, and perfectly shaped lips. It would be a rare sight to see Konrad in such a manner. Usually, his body would be caked in dried blood, ash, and other things found in a battlefield. Were it not for the imperial truth which forbade such beliefs, people would look at the Night Haunter and believe he was a god given physical form.
Talos felt his sense return and began voicing his apologies for intruding where he was unbidden.
“Enough.” The primarch said. “Stand. I will not have you kneeling about here. This is one place in which you may dispense with formalities.” Talos did as he was ordered.
“You were curious about the sword. Tell me Talos, what do you know of the Word Bearers?”
Talos thought of the seventeenth legion and their customs. “They believe the Emperor is a god and worship him as such, in spite of the imperial truth.”
“Yes.” Replied the primarch. “A notion I find rather amusing. My brother Lorgar and his sermons…” he made a face of disgust as he spoke. “…always going on about sacrilege this. Blasphemy that. Heresy, heresy, heresy. Oh, the things I could tell him about our dear father. Tell me Talos, what do you know of heresy?”
Talos said. “A break or deviation from established religious doctrine.”
“Yes. What if I told you my father broke from established religious doctrine? That he had done something in defiance of a power higher than himself? Would that not make him a heretic of the highest order?”
Talos felt he had been served a loaded question. As an astartes, to speak out against the Emperor was an offense which could have him censured. And yet a sneaking suspicion had been growing in his mind that this conversation had been what he had been summoned for. Surely, if the primarch had entered from outside the sanctum, Talos would have heard the great doors opening. No, it was far more likely that the primarch had been watching him the entire time he was here. Silent and hidden in the dark.
Finally, Talos found his tongue and answered.
“Yes. Yes, it would.”
The Night Haunter gave the first smile Talos had ever seen from him. It was sharp and full of teeth.
“Yes, it would.” He said, echoing Talos. He approached the sword and took it from the plinth it rested on. “I know what the legionaries call the arms that I bear into battle. The truth is, there is no name that I have given to the paired lightning claws.” He held the sword out before him. “But this sword…”
He paused for a moment.
“I call it the Heretic.”