Chapter Text
This entire mess began when Amberley summoned me onto her ship, the Externus Exterminatus.
It had been a while since our paths crossed. I was greatly looking forward to seeing her. Yes, I was expecting her to give ‘Ciaphas Cain, hero of the imperium’ another impossible mission that I couldn’t get out of. But I thought we could spend a night or two together before I was sent off.
Jurgen and I had been attached to Lord General Zyvan’s fleet as an advisor for the past couple of years. As we were mainly traveling through the warp, I hadn’t enjoyed someone’s company for a while and seeing Amberley would be a break from the boredom. At this point we had been traveling in the warp for a few months with no obvious destination, normally I would have gotten into a life threatening situation by now, so I could only presume nothing was happening in this part of the sector. I got out of the troop transport flow by a servitor that was bringing me to her ship. Jurgen stayed behind as his smell would ruin the mood, I would always tell him about the mission afterwards, leaving out the more personal details that Amberley would rather I keep private. He was a loyal friend and a great aide, while also smelling like something had died in his uniform. Plus, I was hoping to spend time with Amberley in her bedroom, so Jurgen wasn’t coming with me.
I was surprised to see Amberley not surrounded by her acolytes, but instead another inquisitor whom I didn’t recognize and a squad of Sisters of Battle that seemed to be his bodyguards. It was weird to two inquisitor in the same subsector as each other, I guess ultimate power didn’t mean much if you had a peer that could override you. This immediately put me on high alert, Inquistors didn’t just drop by for a cup of tanna, something was going on. What was even more odd was that I recognized him as an Inquisitor, I was used to Amberley pretending to be a rogue trader or opera singer. This man dressed in fancy robes with sisters of battle surrounding him screamed it for the entire imperium to hear. I got the sense that he hadn’t gone undercover or done any sort of investigative work for a long time.
This unknown inquisitor made me nervous as any sensible person would be. I noticed that he had more icons and symbols of the Emperor than Amberley ever wore. That and the Sisters of Battle as an honor guard behind him made me think he was part of the Ordo Hereticus instead of the Ordo Xenos that Amberley was part of. The last encounter I had with such an Inquisitor didn’t encourage me to the sight of him.
“Ah, here is the celebrated Commissar Cain.” He spoke in a commanding voice, but I couldn’t place his tone. His type normally yelled at heretics or ruled over his subordinates with an iron fist. Maybe he was trying to be polite for the first time in decades. “I’ve heard about your career and your victories against the Great Enemy.”
I shook his hand that was offered to me, still on guard, I didn’t want to be dragged into another fighting chaos mission. “Commissar Ciaphas Cain at your service, and the Emperor puts me where I’m most needed.” It didn’t hurt to emphasize my devotion to the Emperor. I learned that lesson from my old school mate Tomas and the Tallarns he was attached to. You always needed to express your devotion to Him on Terra with these emperor-bother types, especially ones that could order my death.
He gave me an odd look. “Yes, from your long and exalted career, it seems the Emperor has found a lot of uses for you,” he said, trying to peer into my soul. “I am Lord Inquisitor Pilate of the Ordo Hereticus. I have a mission that needs a man with your experience to handle. You will have these Celestians behind me to join you. This is Canoness Catherine, the leader of this order. They will serve the Emperor well.”
Canoness Catherine looked like a joyless woman that would fight any heretic who was unlucky enough to cross her path. As a canoness she was higher ranked than the average sister, and being part of an inquisitor’s honor guard meant she was very good at fighting. In my experience the only other thing the sisters were good at was martyring themselves by charging enemy hordes. They were dressed in power armor and between them looked like they could put a sizable dent into that horde. I knew to be wary of them, if the inquisitor ordered them to, they would gladly fight to the death.
She made the sign of the Emperor at me, and I automatically responded to it. “The Emperor protects.” I said in reflex. “Those blessed by the Emperor and his Saints” she said back in response, trying to pierce my soul as well. I tried to stand up straight and not look like a soldier caught drinking amasec.
Amberley was looking at me. I wasn’t sure what she was trying to convey. Normally it’s something like ‘Cain would you do something for me?’ Or even ‘Cain could we talk privately?’ Which could go either way of enjoying my night or not. Here she was looking at me as if I were a strange puzzle to figure out. She’s not looking at me like I was a fraud, she knew that already, but as if I were someone else. This was strange, but I wasn’t sure why.
If she thought I was turned by a genestealer or fallen to chaos I would have been in a cell by now. We had spent many years together by this point, so even though it was unlikely I would ever understand her I thought she would have fully understood me by now. So what’s with all the looks? It was beyond them just looking for a heretic, they seemed more confused than that. As Inquisitors they must have ran into thousands of those traitors by now, they were sadly common across the imperium.
I had a bad feeling about this mission. But I couldn’t refuse an Inquisitor. If I had known of the consequences, I’d faked my own death, or begged Amberley to fake it for me. Or I should have destroyed my famous reputation earlier in my career, but at this point it was too late.
After all that buildup I was surprised to find out we were going to get a holy relic from a church before a nearby threat from the warp emerged. It didn’t seem like a typical military front, but I suppose a Chaos war band would target a church and its relics to deface it as a priority. To be honest I was surprised at how sensible the idea was to remove the relic from their path instead of fighting to the death to defend it.
The Inquisitors would not be joining us. In fact only a handful of the sisters and I would even venture down to the planet in a single shuttle. The planet in real space was near where we were traveling in the warp. Amberley had ordered the fleet to diverge for that reason. No wonder I had been bored, but it also raised my tension. Being directed anywhere by an Inquisitor usually meant a very hard assignment, as I can personally testified to after all the missions Amberley has sent me on.
As far as I knew no major wars were occurring near here, I kept good track of the front lines. Yes there were raiders, but they often didn’t give a heads up of where they were striking. But we got to the planet with no obvious enemies in sight.
Overall it appeared to be a boring planet, especially with all the secrecy that surrounded it. I wasn’t even given its name. My usual debriefing data-slate didn’t contain it, which normally I would skim instead of reading it, but at least I would get the planet’s name. The sisters themselves didn’t seem keen on offering up information about this mission. As a result the ride down would have been awkward if it wasn’t so ear shatteringly loud. The information I did get informed me that there was lots of land at reasonable temperatures for once, and no great hives or factories on it. In fact I believe the planet itself was scarcely populated. I later learned that only the sisters of battle were allowed to be present on the planet, quite unusual, but there was a very good reason for this rule.
This greatly surprised me at the time as pilgrims were always swarming holy sites in mass. Worship to the God Emperor was often overly showy with huge ceremonies and cathedrals, I’ve never seen a church held to this high esteem while being deserted. Often if a site was holy enough the entire planet would be converted into one fit for millions to journey and pray to the Emperor.
When I remarked about it to Canoness Catherine she stopped walking towards it and straightened up. “This is not a holy site for the unwashed masses” she stated with devotion. “This site is reserved for people with great faith in Him.”
Lovely, I hope He was thinking of me fondly then. I did defeat the demon princess Emeli again recently, but I didn’t have the most devoted mindset. I did send a quick prayer His way, it was unlikely He was listening with everything else going on in the galaxy, but I definitely didn’t want Him to think I was rude.
The church itself was the biggest structure on the planet as far as I could tell. I did see some barracks on the other side, I wondered if it was for the sisters beside me. This didn’t fill me with confidence, the last time I was in a similar place I was nearly killed by an Inquisitor using Sisters of Battle. Then the entire order died when the tyranids, nasty lethal hive-mind xenos, attacked in order to atone for their sins. I put the memory out of my mind and continued on.
Walking up to the church it had the usual icons and construction, gold and skulls everywhere. You could drive a Leman Russ tank through the front doors with room to maneuver. It was very empty, I didn’t see any servitors or skulls floating in the building. Only Sisters Repentia were on guard duty inside.
If you have never seen them, these sisters find minor faults in themselves, think they need redemption, wrap themselves in nothing but holy verses and wield eviscertors. Some of them had very nice assets on display, but I would never be tempted to ask if they were interested in a good time. It’s a good way for body parts to get chopped off and only a Slaanesh cultist would enjoy that.
With my attention being distracted I didn’t notice my ‘honor guard’ being a step or two behind me. I had walked across the threshold without them. Looking back, I noticed a glance or two between them before they resumed following me. I didn’t want to be caught looking so I fixed my gaze onto a small platform that was raised as the centerpiece of the entire church.
As I approached it I started to feel something. Now over my long career I have run into a lot of things the average guardsmen would be shot for even knowing about, but this felt different. It wasn’t like a chaos ritual that I had stumbled across before. It felt most like the aura of a space marine, where theoretically you are on the same side, but you still get this feeling of reverence and dread.
The Canoness then started speaking, as she probably wanted to preach about this holy relic and her order’s duty in guarding it. “This piece of stone was picked up by the Emperor Himself! It’s a rock from Terra itself, placed here by my order centuries ago in …” She continued on with a lot of praise towards Him and his Saints that I tuned out. But I did have a feeling that the story she was paddling on about might be true.
The Emperor did walk among us 10,000 years ago, He’s surely stepped on a rock or two. I would be more surprised that it was from Terra, humans had terraformed the planet so completely you would need to go to the lowest underhive to see anything natural, I knew the Throne was built on a mountain range, maybe the stone came from there? Either way it was silly that so many lives and resources over the centuries were spent to guard a rock.
“You must chain this holy relic to yourself to transport it” she finished. I flinched and nearly refused. I think her grand speech was actually part of a ritual, sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s a ritual and what’s preaching until your gestures are to do something. In my experience, you didn’t want to make contact with anything touched by the warp, holy or not.
However the sisters were already starting this ritual: lighting, incense, etc. and it occurred to me that I was surrounded by a bunch of zealots with a building full of them right next door. No one liked when a ritual was interrupted and I had to finish this mission or two inquisitors would be mad at me. Stepping up to the platform I watched the ceremony. There was a lot of chanting and prayers, rituals are never quick, but eventually they gestured to me to remove my sash and great coat.
Carefully folding my uniform on the ground I did notice some looks my way. Maybe that good time was a possibility after all, or maybe they were interested in my scars. I had lost a few fingers that were hidden by my gloves in a journey that still gave me nightmares. However those weren’t the only scars I had. Some of them were very unusual, a normal encounter with the sorts of enemies that gave me these scars usually results in a dead body.
By this point the chanting had reached a fever pitch, it was at a volume where they were trying to summon a saint to take the rock from them. With all the fanfare I was expecting more when the stone finally touched me. I half expected it to burn me or even melt my mind. It was room temperature, but I would never mistake it as a normal stone. I continued to feel that weird aura while the sisters wrapped the chain around me. I figured I would get used to it as I had gotten used to working around space marines.
The sister in front of me finally stopped chanting and motioned to my uniform, which I hurriedly put on. Afterwards Catherine was friendlier to me, or at least more respectful. She did inform me that I had to have this sacred relic chained into me the entire trip in space until it could be placed back upon holy ground. Apparently the warp wasn’t suitable considering all the demons that lived there. Actually having the relic on me wasn’t reassuring since if there had been raiders I would be the priority target, yet nothing happened on our trip back to the ship. I did notice the Sisters eyeing me the entire way, but I resolved to ignore them to the best of my ability, I didn’t like how they were looking at me, but the transport wasn't exactly roomy so I gave a sigh of relief once we were back onboard the main ship.
After that experience I was greatly relieved to be back on Amberley’s ship. Even if I had to be carrying the relic the entire time for its ‘sacred voyage’. I was even more relieved when she called me into her living quarters, but I could tell from her expression that something was on her mind. “You’re alive,” she noted.
“For once nothing came out of the ground to try and kill me, a nice change of pace” I jested.
She looked at me strangely. “I did feel something” I admitted, “but I’m not sure why Lord Inquisitor Pilate went through all this trouble so I would pick it up. As far as I can tell there doesn’t seem to be any threats coming this way, so why have me move it? Or if it’s a holy site why not task us to guard the entire planet?”
She sighed, “He’s a Thorian, who searches the galaxy testing for miracles and divine avatars. Most of the time they just find chaos cultists, but they search the galaxy for the presence of the Emperor. As a member of the Ordo Xeno, I don’t take part in their religious debates.”
“Wait, testing?” I blurted out. I didn’t know much about Inquisitors, and I didn’t really want to. I knew nothing about Thorians, but being an inquisitor’s experiment is never good. Besides I did know what Hereticus Ordo was, I think even the lowest hiver knew. The Inquisitor Hereticus group was the most feared of all the inquisitors.
Amberley, being concerned with Xenos, focused her attention on non-humans. She was plenty dangerous, but that also meant she wasn’t scrutinizing me or my troops for heresy. When the Ordo of Hereticus focused on someone they were already dead, tortured to death along with most of your friends and family. They didn’t believe in innocent bystanders, they didn't believe in innocence at all, and I wasn’t exactly free of sin.
“You passed the first test. Chaos sorcerers, or random priests trying to claim the Emperor’s favor, are often brought here. Many of them die when setting foot in the temple if they are tainted by chaos. And even devoted priests or Sisters of Battle go mad when directly touching the artifact.”
I hurriedly touched the artifact on my chest again. It gave that same feeling, like it was laughing at me. I suddenly realized why it was attached with chains on me. I shuddered at the thought of some people chained to something, driving them mad.
I had seen some chaos equivalent, but of course it’s different from a holy ritual. Either way it was a real artifact, and those had a habitat of affecting everyone around them. That was the reason only sisters were present on that unnamed planet. I doubt an inquisitor would care for the loss of life, but he would care about letting sinner souls touch the planet.
“But why test me!” I asked her. I knew better than to claim such things, it was asking for trouble. Despite what my career shows, most of my energy is put into avoiding things like this. An inquisitor’s interest, besides Amberley, was one of my worst case scenarios. “I’m certainly not making any proclamations that I’ve been guided by the Emperor.”
She sighed again and patted the bed. I sat beside her. She gave a deep breath before speaking. “One of the inquisitorial spies in the Tau Empire was able to send us information about their most recent propaganda campaign. Something about death rates between our imperial guard versus their Greater Good and the likelihood of retirement.”
I nodded, knowing that retirement rates were abysmal in the guard. To be honest I think everyone did except the poor souls who willingly signed up or were tithed to the guard. However the Tau weren’t better since they liked to brainwash people to keep them in line, and I liked being free of their mind control. True the Imperium tried to do the same thing with the endless preaching at you, but at least I could frak out the Emperor bothers in my head.
“You are known to them and the guard uses you in propaganda. Your face is plastered on their posters. Ciaphas ‘statistically’ you shouldn’t be alive, and that’s just including all the known and less classified missions you were part of.” Amberley told me.
I had no idea what this statistic meant besides being forbidden xeno thinking that would get a normal clog-boy stripped of his augments and turned into a servitor. But I must admit I had survived a lot of things that in hindsight should have killed me. But a low chance isn’t zero and over the years I’ve gotten a lot of impossible odds that have stacked up.
“Ciaphas” Amberley turned to look at me “They of course didn’t call it this, but they ‘mathematically’ proved, in their xeno way, that the Emperor is protecting you. As a result they now have a policy of only capturing you and never aiming to kill. They think the Emperor’s” she made the symbol to show the respect the Tau lacked, “smart as Orks, Tyranids and Chaos regularly target the leader. The Emperor would only need to dedicate enough resources to protect you to destroy a threat. There’s even this theory that if they capture you unharmed they would beat the rest of the army as you are the only one protected. No other enemy would capture you alive. Orks and tyranids don’t comprehend diplomacy. More firepower would be focused on you, leading to their destruction as the Emperor protects you. There’s even plans of moving you towards a Tyranid hive fleet so the Emperor destroys the splinter fleet for them.”
I don’t even know what the Tau considered the Emperor to be. Not a god, but that meant they plunged straight into theories that would have gotten a human turned into a penitent engine, I don’t even want to know what they consider him to be. It’s definitely a problem that would have attracted the inquisition’s attention, xenos trying to use their science to explain the Emperor? I needed to shut this down.
“But they believe in the greater good right? Yes they give lip service but they don’t think the Emperor is really a god!” Blasphemous to say I know, but I remembered when El'hassai told me the Emperor protects, but I knew he put as much stock in it as I did the greater good. Which was none as I placed my life as more important than the average battlefield. Also xenos, being xenos didn’t have the Emperor of mankind as a God, I don’t think they had a god at all! Another reason why the Ecclesiarchy said they should be destroyed. Though they would say the same thing if they did have a xeno god.
I continued, “no Inquisitor, especially one with faith, would ever believe a xeno could prove someone is favored by the Emperor with their xeno science! That’s got to be heretical!”
Amberley sighed. “That just brought it to Lord Inquisitor Pilate’s attention. Your career is already well known and he had access to everything. Including you fighting demons and your encounter on Adumbria. The Tallarns have considered you to be a Saint since that day.”
No one had voxed that news to me, a bunch of Emperor brothers! They likely thought anyone who survived a demon encounter was a divine avatar. It couldn’t have been a normal human who got lucky. It had to be the work of the Emperor because everything was!
“That’s because they don’t know about Jurgen,” I protested as Jurgen being a blank was a secret. He was the reason I survived all those demon encounters that this Inquisitor was so interested in. By nature as a blank his presence hurt anything connected to the warp, especially demons. That also meant he couldn’t be a saint.
Amberley looked even harder at me. “You're the one who kept insisting something was coming, even hijacking the mission near the end to go to the site, it’s part of those court records against you by your old schoolmate Thomas. Speaking of which, I do want to know how you knew a demon prince was about to be summoned.”
Well I knew that might come up someday. I didn’t want it to be known for fear I would be seen as tainted by chaos, but it would explain everything. I told her about the day I first met Emeli back when she was human. How I sensed something wasn’t right, how I barely got out on time and that I called in an artillery strike to kill her. I had thought that worked until I had dreams about her. That she’s still sore that she didn’t get my soul to torture for all eternity and is creating schemes to get it.
“Well that explains it!” Amberley looked at me, “You should have told me. The problem is that it doesn't really help your case as most humans would be destroyed by such a ritual. Most humans would have lost their minds or fallen to chaos. He’s still going to be interested in you. That doesn’t explain how you know where to go to defeat the enemy, not to mention you just stumble on the right way forward every war.”
“That was just me using my hiver’s instinct or being a coward and trying to retreat!” I protested, which is out of character for me to say anything that could harm my reputation, but Amberley already knew my flaws and I feel like I needed to remind her.
She snorted at me “No hiver can do what you can anywhere besides maybe their own hive, especially a child that was taken while so young. A good sense of direction is one thing. Knowing the exact path to go to disturb a demon summoning in the sewers is another. Also, with the way you head towards danger I don’t think you have ever successfully done a retreat. Retreating means moving away from the enemy, not charging into a bigger fight against a tougher opponent.”
I had to admit that was something that happened to me a lot. Trust me I wished I was better at getting away from danger. Too many times I had tried to avoid battle, while ending up in a bigger mess as the original skirmish wrapped up behind me. I swear the Emperor Himself was laughing at me during those moments.
“But I’m just an unaugmented human with better than average chainsword skills!” If they really believed that I was special, shouldn’t I be a more typical die for the Emperor type? Or at least a space marine or something? Maybe even an Adeptus custodies? If the Emperor watched over anyone it would be his elite 10,000.
“Ciaphas, you are the best mortal duelist I’ve ever encountered,” she tells me, holding my hand. That’s sweet of her, it’s nice to know that even Inquisitors were human enough to flatter their partner. Usually she’s more objective than that. I’m definitely not the best even if she is already excluding a lot with that mortal caveat. Normally I love it when she gets flirty and compliments me, even if it's untrue, but I was still focused on the problem at hand.
“So all these rumors reached this Inquisitor’s ears and he thought it was a miracle. So he made me go into a church to see if my power was from me selling my soul to demons or something. Only I didn’t explode into flames so he thinks I’m blessed.” I summarized, which was a bad thing for an Inquisitor to think, I was already sent on enough dangerous missions.
“He talked with General Zyvan and the Reclaimer’s space marines. They spoke very highly of you and when Pilate inquired about the possibility of the Emperor favoring you they agreed with him.” Amberley informed me.
Now that’s surprising. If an Inquisitor started asking about someone, normally the person would throw that unlucky soul under the transport and pray they didn’t get dragged under with them. Harder to do with a lord general or space marines, but they must have liked me if they were putting their reputation on the line. It was nice to know, but for once in the history of the Imperium it would have been better to downplay my accomplishments. I do wonder how they would treat me when I next met them. I didn’t want them to start thinking I was invincible.
“Amberley you know me,” I reminded her, gesturing to myself. “It’s me! I’m not a pious man, I’m not trying to martyr myself, I’m not like those Emperor botherers who normally turn into living saints. I’m a complete coward.”
Amberley turned to face me. She had already known all of this about me, I guess it didn’t matter to her. “What do you think of the Emperor?”
This should have set off warning flags, but at this point I was worried about being shoved at a demon prince. “Look, I think the Emperor is really busy alright? He’s focused on beating back the legions of Chaos and the other enemies of mankind! Compared to all the battles he’s waging every moment he can’t protect everyone at once. So I try to do the most I can to beat the enemy and only bother him if it’s needed. My life isn’t so special. He would protect me over his vastly more important duties.” I explained to her, being more open than I was to anyone else, even Jurgen, trying to make her understand that the Emperor didn’t care what I thought.
“Ciaphas, say the most heretical thing you can think of.” She quickly responded. I still had no idea what she was trying to get at, what did she want me to say? Why was she even asking me that? Normally only an insane chaos cultist would think of saying that to an Inquisitor, but I did trust Amberley.
The issue was I didn’t have much to say. While He was busy, the Emperor had got me out of a problem or two over my long career. The fact I wasn’t dead by xeno, chaos, or live firing squad was proof enough. Plus I did value my soul, and when I finally did die and arrived before the Golden Throne I didn’t want Him to think I had denounced Him or anything. I didn’t exactly relish going to Church and I wasn’t an Emperor Bother, but I still believed in Him and prayed to him for protection when things got deadly. With my lot in life that was more often than I liked, but I had to say something to prove I wasn’t a saint.
“He’s got a terrible sense of humor,” I blurted out, remembering all the times I could have sworn he was laughing at me. In fact I think the stone on my chest was giving me that feeling right now, never a good sign.
“What?” She asked.
“It’s true! I swear I can hear Him laughing at me!” I said remembering all the situations I’ve been in over the years. “I mean, me being alive compared to who knows how many devoted soldiers? It has to be a joke!”
Which was true for once, I might value my own life highly, but that’s because no one else would if they knew the real me. During my long career of keeping myself alive I’ve seen many good men die who were more worthy to be saints than me.
I don’t know what Amberley would have said to that, but the Inquisitor suddenly stormed into her room with his honor guard behind him. The room had apparently been bugged. That showed me for trying to be honest to someone, I should have known better than that.