Imperium Ascendant

Chapter Twenty-Seven: The View from Ulthwe

Location: Craftworld Ulthanash Shelwé, Scrying Chamber of Eldrad Ulthran

Date: 862.M30 (Imperial Standard Time)

The young Seer sat in the center of a reflecting pool, hovering slightly above the ritual waters in a meditative trance. With practiced ease, the Seer pushed his mind and awareness into the Warp, anchoring himself to his Spirit Stone as he dove in. He was taking a great risk, walking the old paths of soothsaying and peering into the Warp to catch a glimpse of the future like this. But he was desperate. This action was not done lightly but as a final gamble. Every previous method of foresight had proved hopelessly jumbled, as if someone had tossed a mountain into the waters of destiny, stirring it up and obscuring all but the greatest seers. Fate would settle eventually, but that would take time and could possibly form into a disastrous configuration in the meantime.

So it fell to Eldrad Ulthran, the prodigal seer of Craftworld Ulthwe, to take whatever risks necessary to find the future his people needed. Eldrad was of the new generation, born after the Fall and into a galaxy of strife. He was born into an era where the fate of his species and the galaxy with it hung by a thread. Only a few centuries of age, Eldrad had become something of a symbol among his people. He had broken from the old ways and helped shape the new. It was he who spearheaded the reformation of Morai-Heg's temple into the Path of the Seer. He earned the respect of Asurmen and laughed in the face of his broken elders. Now in his own secluded scrying chamber, the increasingly desperate Seer used every method he could, including the impossibly dangerous act he now attempted. After days of meditation and cleansing, he had purified himself to spiritual translucence. His emotions and ego were wrapped up and hidden in order to mask his presence in the Warp. If Eldrad lost focus or let his emotions rise he would be bleeding meat surrounded by hungry predators.

Eldrad took this monumental risk almost regularly now. Every few day-cycles he plunged into the Warp and pulled up priceless scraps of foresight. Slowly but surely he was crafting an accurate picture of what he needed. The few rune-castings he had managed to do without interference pointed him to a key. This new shifting uncertainty of destiny was not truly random. Patterns within patterns traced through the changing futures. Axes of possibility wheeling around key events and people. If Eldrad could locate one of these keys he could use it as a prognostic cipher. Gaining a valuable landmark to center his foresight and let him see past the current turbulence.

It had taken cycles of work but the first of what would eventually be known as the Farseers had found his key, and it was almost in reach. The efforts had almost killed him or worse on fifteen different occasions and earned him a venomous castigation from an ancient former Priest of Morai-Heg. The key he selected to pursue was powerful, it attracted the intense focus of all players in the Great Game. Destiny warped around its actions with causal ease. Eldrad could have of course picked a lesser key for his effort, something safer and easier to locate. But doing so would limit the scope of his foresight and despite his wisdom, intelligence and genius, Eldrad fell into the oldest sin his people suffered. His pride pushed him to do what others thought impossible.

In this most recent dive, the Farseer gathered the last and most important shard of destiny needed to comprehend his chosen key, its name. It had been difficult in the extreme, simply because this name refused to follow the rules of its kind. It was set and static like a Daemons. Everything about a Neverborn is changeable, everything except its true name. It is the truth of the Daemon, its identity and origin together. Knowledge of which could grant power over the Daemon, something the Neverborn fear above all except true death. In that way, the name Eldrad pursued seemed like a Neverborn's, except it was not tucked away and hidden like a shameful secret. This name was spoken across a billion lips in a billion timelines, carved into the immaterium through repetition and intensity. In this way, the name was like that of a legend or minor deity. Rare things in this era, quickly swallowed up by the Thirsting Gods or the Anathema. Then even more curiously, the name belonged to a single shifting soul. Like a mortal's name. However, it did not change with its owner like a true mortal's name would. The name belonged to a Daemon, a Legend, and a Mortal while being none of those things. Its defiance of timeless truths would normally fascinate and amuse Eldrad. Instead, the importance and anomalous nature of the name brought the Farseer a mixture of annoyance, fear, and trepidation.

With his prize in hand, Eldrad finally returned to his body. Eyes that had not seen use for day-cycles sprung open and the Eldar slowly unfolded his body from its meditation pose. Floating just over the shimmering water below him Eldrad opened his mouth to speak the name he had toiled to claim. It came to him easily, the guttural tongue of the name's origin language flowing from his lips as the plucked knowledge did its work.

"Magnus Rubricar," he said, and the world broke in an explosion of visions.

*Two armies clashing in the shadow of burning Pyramids. Each headed by abominations crafted from occult mysteries*

* A Throne of Gold at the heart of everything. A Crimson King seated upon it, blind to all but what his third eye sees*

*Screaming children of a lost Craftworld. Dying as the void pulled a final breath from their lungs.*

* The Library burned as it was brought in chains to the Throne of Gold. The ultimate performer unmasked and enslaved*

* Twenty Godlings kneeling before an Imposter Deity. Hubris to conquer the galaxy, the power to burn it to ash.*

Eldrad did not know how long the visions lasted. They pounded into his mind like surf against the shore. Eventually, the Farseer pulled himself back to some semblance of normal and took great shuddering breaths. His efforts had been worth the danger. Eldrad had learned more than he hoped, and yet countless new questions arose. It would take him time to make a plan of action but he could do it. He would meet this Primarch and use him to help the Aeldari.

Looking out from his scrying chamber, through ornate wraithbone windows. Eldrad gazed up into the void and the abomination that filled Ulthwe's sky. The Eye of Terror, the ultimate monument to his people's sins. Craftworld Ulthwe slowly moved away from the gaping rip in reality with each passing cycle, fleeing the yawning abyss at steady sub-light speeds. Once it had been Ulthwe's destiny to be trapped at the edge of the Eye, stuck in its eldritch orbit and assailed by the Great Enemy till Rhana Dandra. That fate had been changed through the most unlikely intervention. The Human God-Caller had pushed back the darkness slightly. His Soul-Pyre lit the Warp and weakened Chaos' grip on the Galaxy. The psychic fire, that horrid anathema to the creatures from beyond the boundaries of reality, scorched the wound that had once been the Crone Worlds ever so slightly which let Ulthwe escape and chart a new course in the galaxy.

Eldrad did not believe it was a coincidence that his long-sought key was one of the Anathema's summoned godlings. It seemed every strand of fate led back to that great tyrant and its host species. Godcalling and the nature of this so-called Emperor of Mankind were not things Eldrad knew much about. As a Farseer, his duties pertained to the future, not the past. Cryptic hints hidden in the oldest myths and the terror of his seniors told of exactly how dangerous this Mon-Keigh Godcaller was. The Emperor had done the unthinkable, with the kind of brutish carelessness you would expect of its servant species. It had summoned up twenty malformed godlings at once, shoved them into malfunctioning flesh, and unleashed them upon the galaxy. A barbaric parody of the ancient powers of Eldanesh. Eldrad and his few equals among the Seer path expected this botched experiment in ancient power to end in predictable tragedy. Eldanesh and Ulthanesh had been heroes of the Aeldari, champions of the species who were molded by the Gods themselves. Yet they let the Bloody Handed One tear them apart and strike down Eldanesh. What hope did this Emperor have in controlling his creations?

This inevitable lack of control might serve Eldrad. He might just be able to communicate with this Magnus creature. If he could offer it an alternative to its creator's cruel vision, it might be won over. Having influence over such a powerful being that seemed inexorably linked to the changing future would be a great boon. Of the many skills required to manipulate the future, chief among them is the ability to see connections and understand their nature. It was a skill Eldrad had few rivals in. The connections between Ulthwe, himself, the Human Godcaller, and Magnus Rubricar started to paint a picture for the first Farseer. The cause of the metaphorical boulder tossed into the tides of fate had been a mystery. Something which came from no apparent source and disrupted the schemes of every future weaver. Now Eldrad had an idea of its origin, if not its nature. Somehow the human Godcaller had altered the future in some crucial unexplainable way, creating an entirely new unfolding chain of causality that his fifteenth creation Magnus Rubricar was closely linked to.

Magnus may be the key Eldrad had been looking for but finding him now presented new challenges. The Farseer needed to find the lock for his key and learn how to use it correctly. If successful he would gain insight into this new future, a valuable pawn or possible ally. To do this he needed information. The kind of which entire worlds had been burned to get. Farseer Eldrad, prodigal prophet of Ulthwe prepared to journey to the Black Library. There he might learn the secrets of the Godcallers and how to save his species.

Location: Forzare System, the Gloriana Class battleship Ananta-Mandjet

Date: 895.M30 (Imperial Standard Time)

The Imperium of Man was at war on all sides. It fought two great campaigns against the most dangerous Xeno breeds to pollute the galaxy. Along with a hundred more smaller conflicts of expansion and extermination. Fourteen of the twenty Primarchs were devoted to the wars against the Rangda or Orks respectively, with the remaining six rotating between aiding their brothers, using their expertise to aid the Imperiums development, or fighting enemies beyond the scope of mere Expeditionary fleets. That last duty is what fell to the XV Legion as it entered the Forzare system.

The System and its galactic neighbors were ruled by a small but vicious abhuman civilization that called themselves Amonite Commune. Normally the mutant culture would not have been a priority for the Imperium except for its home-systems location and the Commune's unusual powerful psychic abilities. Forzare was located at the very edge of the Golgothan Wastes and its occupants had taken to harassing Imperial ships moving towards the great Orkish wars through a mixture of piracy and psychic trickery. An Auxilia invasion force had been sent a few years earlier. They had retreated with heavy casualties from truly foul warp-craft and impeccably organized resistance. Data gathered in the failed invasion told of an advanced caste-based culture made up of a number of Abhuman species each suited for a particular role. Who despite great psychic potential showed no sign of chaos corruption. Despite this the Amonite Commune was sentenced to total subjugation for crimes of defiling the human genome, engaging in unbound warp-craft and inflicting harm upon the Emperor's subjects. A sentence Primarch Magnus Rubricar and his legion would carry out.

The XV Legion has pushed straight into the Forzare system. Using their formidable psychic power, they rode the Immaterial tides past the Communes outer worlds and right into its heart, bypassing the traditional Warp lanes and moving the full force of the XV Crusader Fleet to the Mandeville points closest to the Capitol world of the Amonite Commune. This precise long-distance Warp travel into unmapped territory was under normal circumstances incredibly dangerous. For the XV Legion, this was standard strategy. The Sons of Magnus had recently earned a name for their actions defending the Imperium from numerous threats of sorcery. The Arcane Brotherhood, or the Arcanists as some called them, were unique among the Twenty Legions. Every member of the Legion is a psyker of some talent. Only those touched by the warp and capable of controlling that deadly gift could be transformed into XV Legion Astartes. The risks to create and replenish this legion were more than outweighed by its incredible power. Something the denizens of Forzare were soon to learn,

Under their Primarch's guidance, fifty thousand Battle-Brothers of the Arcanists guided their fleet into the unknown system. They traveled with a precision that the greatest of navigators would be challenged to replicate. Translating to real space in the Forzare system it came time for the Imperium to strike back against this abhuman degenerate culture with all the power at the XV Legions disposal. Before the Amonites had time to regroup the XV Crusader Fleet had started the attack. Despite the small size of the Arcane Legion, its fleet matched its cousins in size and deadliness. In fleet combat, the XV Astartes did not waste themselves on boarding actions or piloting attack craft. While the Arcanist's ranks hold Astartes specialized in those ways of war, it was not the preferred method of their legion.

The teachings of Magnus say that it's the duty and privilege of psykers to use their gifts to benefit mankind. A tenet that was reflected in the Arcane Brotherhood's methods of war. Covens of united Battle Brothers meditated and focused across the fleet, working together to unleash coordinated and devastating assaults. The ships and orbital defenses of the Forzare system were neither numerous nor especially powerful. Its people relied on psychic trickery and sorcery to fight their foes. This strategy proved to be their undoing, for they were but children at the art compared to the might wielded by the XV Legion. Enemy ships were gripped by herculean telekinetic force, and tossed into their allies with dismissive ease. Imperial fighter pilots found enemy flak cannons missing every shot as they aimed for illusionary ships dreamed up by Astartes psykers. Crews of the most dangerous Amonite capital ships turned on each other and burned alive as psychic assaults tore through their vessels. Any counterattack mustered by the abhuman witch breeds violently imploded or met unsurmountable mental wards surrounding the XV Fleet.

The orbital war was over quickly. There was little the enemy could do to strike back against the Arcane Legion. Even the desperate telepathic calls for aid sent by the defenders were silenced, ripped from the Warp by Astartes scrying the immaterium for such messages. The Forazare system was cut off completely and its worlds faced Imperial judgment. A duty that fell to Magnus Rubricar, Lord of Mysteries and Archmagi of the Primarchs to oversee.

Magnus had watched the battle unfold through all of his senses. To his pride, Magnus's interference had been unneeded. His sons and mortal soldiers had fought using every teaching and lesson he could give them and crushed their foe beautifully. The Primarch mused on how much the Imperium focused on his Legions psychic gifts, and missed its other great weapons. As an army of scholars and learned supermen, they valued knowledge and its use. Every one of his sons had studied the greatest generals of a thousand eras and debated their strengths and failings with their brothers. This culture of wisdom and information had filtered through the entire crusader fleet. Every member of the fleet, from the highest admirals to the lowliest servants spent what time they had bettering themselves through learning. The results of all that knowledge and its combined application had been the true key to such an easy victory. A fact that pleased Magnus to no end. After all, he was born to be more than a warlord. Teaching and spreading wisdom were as much part of him as conquest and battle.

Standing upon the Command deck of his Flagship, the Ananta-Mandjet, Magnus congratulated the various officers of the XV Crusader fleet, both transhuman and mortal for their victory before moving to the great crystal panes of the deck and peering down at the capitol world of the Amonite Commune. On either side of the Primarch stood his twin equerry and closest students. The brothers Ahriman and Ohrmuzd, both extremely powerful Psykers and some of the first successful recruits to the XV Legion. Ahriman was the first to speak.

"What am I sensing from this world? The Souls of its people feel… wrong?"

Magnus observed the planet for a while. He knew exactly what his son referred to, he just did not know the correct words to describe it. The world below them was populated by close to fifty million abhumans of varying psychic potential. A single continent of the planet contained the entire population and it was covered in neat geometric development centered around a singular mega-city. Not anything abnormal for surviving worlds in this Age of Strife, but what truly made it unusual was the planet's imprint on the Warp. To the immaterial senses of Magnus, it seemed every abhuman on the world was connected in some way. Strings of psychic power linking them all in a great web and these threads all traced back to the few most powerful souls on the planet. Puppet strings covering an entire planet and binding fifty million beings into a controlled order. The effect was not powerful enough to control minds, but easily influence them on a macro scale. It was a precise and masterfully crafted piece of Warpcraft, blurring the lines between individual beings and the collective whole.

Magnus found the right description and spoke softly: "They are like insects. Bonded together in a great eusocial hive. No… not eusocial but close to it. They are still individuals, but they are bound to the collective will in a great and subtle way. Not quite psychic slavery, yet still an insidious method of control."

It was Ohrmuzd's turn to respond now. "Can they be freed from it? Could we cut the web and salvage some of these creatures?"

With a mixture of power and finesse shared by a handful of beings in the galaxy, Magnus reached out and brushed against the web. Like a curious child investigating a spider's den, Magnus examined the psychic network, tugging at its connections and sensing its properties. As he did, the Primarch felt himself brush up against something in the web. There was a formidable psychic presence buried near its core. Careful not to alert it, Magnus mentally stepped back and made his conclusion.

"Sadly I do not think so my son." Magnus frowned, sorrow present in his voice.

"From birth, these abhumans are connected to this web. It feeds them a constant intake of information and influences them in a profound way. Destroying the web would drive most of them insane. It would be like robbing a world of an entire sense and key social construct all at once. But while we cannot save them from this fate, neither can we let the web stay intact. This is no product of bizarre evolutionary pressure. Something sits in the center of this sprawl and influences the world around it. We cannot excise the tumor, all we can do is stop it from spreading. "

After a few moments of contemplation, Magnus continued. "I will be joining the assault on the surface. I wish to dissect this anomaly. While grotesque in scope and influence, it might provide insight into better telepathic communication. Perhaps the concepts displayed here might be repurposed for better Astropathic transmission. Even if it's completely degenerate or useless, I wish to be close to the battle when we uncover this world's master. Whatever produced this web is not lacking in psychic power or skill. I want to ensure it dies quickly and cleanly."

The twin equerries acknowledged the Primarchs orders and left him to prepare for planetfall. Standing alone peering down at the planet, Magnus felt as if something was watching him. Knowing it was a sensation not uncommon for the psychically gifted and one that was never to be ignored, Magnus reached out subtly, expecting to find the eyes of some Neverborn horror or maybe the master of the planet below observing him. To his surprise, neither possibility was the source of his discomfort. It was something new. By the Primarchs standards, it was a small and ephemeral spirit and watching him through what could best be described as a 'crack' in the warp where something sheltered from the Sea of Souls.

Shutting his eyes the Primarch turned in the spiritual plane to face the watcher and thrust a simple but powerful telepathic message towards it.

"I SEE YOU."

Instantly the spying presence disappeared and with it any evidence of its intrusion. Frowning and feeling a faint itch on his forehead, Magnus returned to the Material. This was a mystery that would eventually require his attention. For now he had other matters to deal with. Turning to leave the command deck Magnus reached out telepathically to various subordinates across the fleet. Updating them on what he had learned and gathering any pertinent data he might require. As he prepared to move to his arming chamber and occult study, a sudden thought struck Magnus. Imperial records about the Forzare system had been spotty. The mixture of cartography, archaeology, and guesswork that made up the Imperium's investigation into ancient star charts was not always reliable. Still, Magnus had asked one of his personal scholars to find out what he could about the system.

As a final check, the Primarch spoke to his researching scholar telepathically. "Adept Haemweset, have you learned anything new about this system we find ourselves in?"

Haemweset, a youthful if skilled scholar, was pulled deep from his research in the personal library of Magnus by his master's call. Even after years of service, having a Primarch speak directly into your mind without warning was disorienting. Regaining focus the scholar spoke through the opened telepathic channel.

"Yes my lord, I found another source that I think identifies the primary world of the Forzare system."

In the unspeech of Telepathy, the Primarch asked, "Do you have a name for the world? I dislike waging war on a world once in human hands without knowing its name."

Now expecting the message Haemweset responded quickly: "I do actually, the records call it Prospero."

(Edited by Klickator)

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