Warhammer 40: Shattered Steel Soul

Chapter 476 The Seal Holder

The inner court of the palace was as bright as new, with dazzling light flowing on every gilded wall and every tower shining brightly.

The mortal servants led the lecturers of the Thousand Dust Sun's Holy Temple through spacious halls that were as bright as the rising sun. The pillars cut out a hundred prison-like marks in the space.

Sometimes Ahriman suspected that he was walking in a mud that had accumulated for hundreds of generations. The dirt and blood stained the soles of his boots, making it difficult for him to move forward. However, the ground was a smooth mirrored tile that was scrubbed thirteen times a day by the servitors. Nothing was reaching out from the ground to grab his ankle with its withered hands...

Or did he only have to look out into the ocean of the Warp to see countless hostile spirits tugging at each other, hoping to immobilize him?
They passed by those halls, the stairs extended to different angles, forming vaguely geometric vortices. The golden-armored guards still stood at those special corners, or stepped past a door, as if nothing could change their will, or the change was over.

The closer they got to the sea level, the clearer the roar of machinery and the long whistles of various steam and horns became. The temperature of the fuel baked the passage they were in at the edge of the floor and walls. Some glittering glassware seemed to be sweating, and other white metal plates hissed.

The people of the Fifteenth Legion advanced to the sound of their own footsteps. No one spoke a word. The pressure exerted on their bodies became more and more terrifying. Thick darkness wandered and surged in their consciousness. Behind every beam of real light lurked a super-material shadow a hundred times more powerful.

Ahriman felt that they were being watched by a higher being, as if they were a few small fish swimming aimlessly in an aquarium or culture tank, being watched with interest by the giant outside the glass...

"Throne room?" Hathor Mat whispered, his voice seemed to be freezing in the cold environment.

"I think so," Ahriman replied. This long road should lead to the Terran catacombs that Magnus had briefly described to them, otherwise where else could they go?

Regardless, along with the darkness came their perception of Magnus's remaining marks. This became clearer and clearer, until it gradually became a new and strange motivation, adding hot fuel to their progress. Their hearts became hot as they sank, breeding despair and accompanied by a trance of optimism.

They were coming to the last echo of Magnus in the world, weren't they? They were looking for their father, because they were his children. Because the truth should not be hidden.

But what should they do after that? After they step into the abyss, will the abyss let them go?
The old incense smell gradually became stronger, almost damp, covering them, and distant mechanical music and bells echoed together. They passed by some heavy doors, and the skull patterns outlined in pure gold formed a tight array of pentagrams, representing those unknown blockades... Something, some kind of will seemed to be trembling faintly on one of the doors, ready to come out...

Finally, the throne room.

But first, the Word Bearers. Their paper-like light-colored armor had been replaced with a dried blood-red paint, or perhaps the gaps in their armor structure were indeed soaked with blood. Ten Space Marines in blood-red armor stood with their backs to them in front of the tall, exquisitely carved door, reverently chanting some low-pitched prayers, which only made Ahriman feel uncomfortable.

Some beads of sweat ran down his forehead and flowed over the Prospero-style eyeliner around his eyes.

"You're here," a Word Bearer said, noticing their arrival, or rather, finally waiting for this moment. He turned his head, his power armor humming.

"We come to meet the Emperor," Azak Ahriman whispered. "We come to answer a question that has no answer."

The Word Bearer's eyepiece looked at them. "Traitors," he pronounced calmly.

"What did you say?" Hathor demanded.

"Traitor of the Fifteenth Legion," said another Word Bearer, his gaze stinging and sullen, but mostly unsettling.

The feeling of being watched grew stronger.

“Prospero never betrayed the Emperor,” said Ahriman. “Never—”

Before his voice touched the wall of the tunnel, space suddenly fell downwards, infinite darkness suddenly unfolded, time itself lost its concrete meaning, he felt himself fixed to the specimen stand by a long needle piercing his heart, and the pair of eyes that had always been watching them approached.

It is not a physical eye, but the gaze of the soul itself, the endless dark force that envelops and fixes them, a face without existence, and a curse beyond death...

+There are many betrayers...+
A will that transcends the veil of the world bombards Ahriman's mind, and he feels himself melting into non-existent fragments, and yet he came here with a purpose.

+Emperor,+ Ahriman asked in agony, his mind seemed to be cracking at this,+I beg you to tell us, where is our father? +
There was a moment when he seemed to have fallen on the border between life and death, and Ahriman forced himself to maintain his focus on communicating with this huge being.

He heard it...

+Magnus... betrayed the throne,+ Ahriman shuddered as the voice cut through his skin, carrying a hatred that seemed to tear his flesh from his bones.

+This is impossible, Emperor. + He said, trembling.

+Prospero will pay with blood and fire,+The voice's words became more fluent, as if the horrible being was quickly grasping the fragments floating in the air and piecing them together into an entirely different whole,+and Magnus is dead.+
+No!+ Ahriman cried, his body cold as ice.

The existence in the darkness seemed to be gradually becoming more concrete. Coiled pipes and cold lines outlined the silhouette of the throne. The ground gradually took shape. Near the throne, there seemed to be a dry, thin, mortal arm, which stretched out from the darkness towards the throne. However, before it touched the throne, it was helplessly reduced to ashes...

A faint mark seemed to still exist in the depths of the darkness, stubbornly emitting a ray of light, but there were few traces left, only a few shaken residues, falling on the fallen scepter as if it had fallen into a grave.

The name came to his mind. Ahriman was shocked, and his breathing stopped.

Malcador the Sigillite...

But how could it be possible? Was the scarred and tattered cloth the same person as the former chancellor of the empire? Was it true, or was he mistaken?
The flickering light of the mark twitched, curled up and lit up from the edge of the throne, suddenly flew towards Ahriman, instantly branded between the bones of his hand, and shattered in the next fleeting moment.

Ahriman endured the pain for a moment. His palm felt like it was pierced by an anchor, and it hurt a lot. However, his senses were fixed in a special position in the darkness, vaguely pointing to a heavy door that had been opened. At the same time...

The sentencing at the throne continues.

+Obey, Azak Ahriman.+
+You no longer have any other choice. +
+Or burn with Prospero.+
What did this being say? Prospero's burning? How could Prospero fall into the rumored burning? Wasn't the Hidden One Amon protecting Prospero? Who had the power to make Prospero burn? The being who gave the order was undoubtedly in front of him, watching his fear and despair, drawing the power he longed for from the fragments of his pain, but unable to hurt him further... Yes, he suddenly realized that he was still intact.

The remnant of Magnus's mark also became apparent, wrapped around his other hand, gentle and hot. Ahriman realized part of the truth, and it broke his heart.

Pain and fear, at their peak, transformed into a calm force that filled Ahriman.

Where were the rest of his brothers? Were they similarly rebuked by the Emperor - or by things that had been the Emperor? He felt their souls in the darkness, those faint candles, distant and near, blurred, but still maintaining a resonance that would not be abandoned. They were the same.

+No.+
Ahriman's heart stopped struggling. He slowly regained his breath, feeling the warning bends and eddies in the turbulence of time. He repeated again, +No. +
Was there a horrible echo there? Bursting out from the closed doors of the throne room, drowning them in anger? He felt the specimen of his body being torn apart, and he kept falling...

He suddenly fell back into reality, time and space returned to normal, and he lay on the ground with a pair of power swords at the back of his neck.

"Hold still, traitor," said the Word Bearer.

Ahriman panted heavily and stood up under the escort of the Word Bearers. At some point, more Word Bearers appeared here.

And the palace's watchers. The Custodians. The Custodians' horned helmets turned to look at their miserable appearance, watching their armor being forcibly torn off and the blood starting to flow from their neural interfaces.

"You will watch Prospero burn."

"And then it will be you who will burn."

The Word Bearers passed on the orders from the higher being one by one, and the back of each Thousand Dust Sun was facing the cold muzzle of the grenade launcher. Hathor Mat gritted his teeth, and for a moment Ahriman thought he was going to start to rebuke the empire that had truly betrayed them. He said dryly: "No, Hathor."

Hathor looked at him and paused, with sadness in her eyes.

Ahriman nodded to him, trusting that he would understand - he did not choose to submit.

They were led back the way they had come. Ahriman's palms were still burning, and the two marks were invisible, as if they did not exist, but he knew they were branded deep in his soul.

He counted the doors and identified the patterns... There was one pattern that made his hand bones particularly sore, and at that moment the feeling became intense.

A door. Inscribed with complex patterns and seals, somewhere along this passage, it hissed and called him forward, in the gap between the thin veil of reality and the Warp - this was the unspoken, tacit plan, the wandering fate chosen for them by Magnus and Malcador.

Yes, he had vaguely sensed something. After all, he was a Black Crow, and his eyes could see even the most distant moment.

Azak Ahriman suddenly combined a series of subspace explosions. Everything around him seemed to be stagnant. Dangerous helmeted faces suddenly turned towards him. The propellant of the explosive bomb was ignited, and the terrible kinetic energy quickly accumulated. Then the muffled sound of the explosion blasted his eardrum. His companions tacitly set up a psychic shield for him in an instant, and he only had a few breaths to complete his mission...

He pressed his hands on the tightly closed door in the underground palace. The magic runes of the Imperial Chancellor and Magnus's spell collapsed and unravelled at the same moment when he received the order. Only the remaining Emperor's psychic energy was still flickering, but without the support of the other two forces, this psychic energy was violently turbulent.

Ahriman exerted all his strength and smashed his fists on the door. Tides of psychic energy surged around him and the remaining marks of his hands burned more and more fiercely, bursting into lightning-like red light. The makeshift storm continued to grow stronger, blending and rising until the heavy door cracked a thrilling crack and then collapsed in an instant.

After being sealed for more than a hundred years, a huge engine finally reappeared in the light of day.

In an instant, it broke free and flew out the door. Ahriman stretched out his right hand and a new psychic rein was tightly tied around the engine. He immediately pulled up the other Thousand Dust Sun companions. They were always connected and never separated.

A new name emerged in Azak Ahriman's mind, the name of the engine.

Tuchucha.

The attack of the Word Bearers and Custodians was left behind in the real universe, and the last sound they heard was the throne's loud, grim sentence: +Prospero shall burn.+
They turned and immersed themselves in the vast ocean in the howling tide of the warp, crossing thousands of roaring colors that rolled endlessly, connecting with each other in despair, supporting each other with a foam-like thin layer to resist the breath of chaos.

This simple and shaky force field held the few real-space beings around them, preventing them from coming into direct contact with the vast ocean's naked body.

The impacting waves broke and destroyed each other, all the forces were melting and trembling, the warp roared and boiled, rolling endlessly, the demons' screams pierced the consciousness, becoming sharper and sharper, the broken screams were everywhere, the world squeezed and twisted and expanded, tearing apart all the unimaginable things...

+Where are we going? + asked Fusistaka, his voice still sounding shocked and sad.

Ahriman pulled the reins of the engine, his mouth filled with the cold smell of metal and the smell of blood, with destruction and darkness chasing after him.

Ahriman's nerves were tense, Magnus's thoughts were burning in his bones, afterimages passed by him, he saw the flames, the fragments and ashes that Magnus had seen, pictures hung above his head, howling and swirling, he trembled, still giving what was left of his strength, pulling at Tuchucha's existence, feeling the power of its cheers, and persisting, pushing a tiny deflection -

+Webway. +He said calmly.

In precise, never-ending calculations, and with the assistance of other Templar lecturers, a dark whirlpool appeared in their path, and the Tuchucha engine carried them through the blockade of dark forces. In an instant they fell into the webway, and Magnus's power expanded and surged around them, catching their fall and wrapping their rampage, silently and even unconsciously bringing invisible protection.

The speed of the engine was unwillingly slowed down by the power left in the webway by the red Magnus. Gravity was recovering, and they fell to the strange white and red ground, gasping for breath.

And the sentence that was once the Emperor's still resounds.

+Prospero will burn.+
(End of this chapter)