Etrich, his spear slanted across his back, stood at the entrance of the black tent.
Inside, Nareth moved his mind. In the first layer of the Kingdom of Disorder, the Jokaero began to concoct the Sequence 5 "Traveler" potion, using ingredients including a star chart drawn with spiritual blood.
He looked at Santiago Borgkamp, Chapter Master of the Fifth.
The "Scribe" drew his force sword without activating its psychic runes. Spirituality bled from his fingertips to the blade's tip.
He rapidly tapped the ground, geometric shapes, triangles, squares, rising.
The "Euclidean Runes" rose, and the Great Ocean receded like an ebbing tide.
Black mist rose from Nareth's right hand, concealed behind his back.
He turned his wrist. Vials of white, translucent liquid, like half-melted snow, materialized before the sixteen "Scribes."
"Drink it."
"Thanks be to our Father!"
As the others thanked the Black Emperor, Santiago picked up his vial, studying the pale green bubbles rising within.
He tilted his head back and drank. The others drank almost simultaneously.
As the liquid slid down his throat, Santiago and the others felt their consciousnesses grow distant, involuntarily rising into a supernatural realm of powerful minds and intense emotions.
Information exploded in their minds like a stellar nova.
Even Santiago, the daemonologist, was lost in the wonders of unknown spaces and dimensions.
After absorbing the power granted by the Black Emperor, Santiago's obsidian eyes looked around.
Impenetrable mists of emotion and sensation surrounded him.
He searched the infinite, shifting world for Aghoru, never finding the thread he had left.
Suddenly, a voice of Majesty echoed.
"Santiago!"
He started. It was the Black Emperor's voice.
"Recall the four special coordinates you have marked!"
Santiago instantly obeyed. A spectral tome appeared in his eyes.
Pages of red-black, deep black, and pale green flipped rapidly, stopping at a violet-blue page.
The illusory realm of the Formless Waste.
A luminous point appeared before him.
The pages continued to turn: the source domain, the shifting dimension of the Wyvachs, the Aghoru Webway.
Four points of light surrounded him, each shooting ethereal, crystalline lines.
The lines intersected like a spiderweb.
Santiago's gaze sharpened, focusing on a single point.
It was the one point where the lines from all four luminous points converged.
He knew the path. He walked towards it.
The moment he set foot on the point, an invisible force, like a great hand, pressed against his consciousness.
Boom!
An intangible psychic shockwave hurled his awareness back into his body.
Santiago blinked, then saw the Black Emperor's majestic form.
"I thank my Lord for this gift!"
Moments later, Nareth, through his psychic power, recalled all sixteen newly advanced "Travelers."
As they left, Arsena entered the tent.
"My Lord, Lemuel Gaumon, a Remembrancer of the 28th Expedition Fleet, requests an audience."
Nareth knew he had come for his wife, Marika. The question was whether to see him.
'Hmm... better to see him now. It will make the contact after the Heresy more natural.'
'The key is, he's an aura-reader... though that's not a problem.'
After a moment's thought, the "Mentor of Disorder" ordered.
"Send him in. Do not touch him."
The Honour Guard had rotated; none of those who had seen Marika, under the name Lorraine, aboard the Shadow's Sovereignty were present.
The only ones on Aghoru who had seen her were Arsena and Etrich.
Etrich was a Blank; aura-reading was useless against him.
"By Your will."
....
Moments later, Lemuel, in a light linen robe, entered the tent.
Close up, the vast pillar of aura was overwhelming. His body trembled instinctively.
He bit his lip, kneeling, and spoke with gratitude.
"Lord Nareth, I thank you for finding time amidst your many duties to see me."
"Gaumon." Nareth looked at the man before him, one of the four future founders of the Inquisition.
With part of his pressure held back, enough to shatter a normal mind, he still maintained his composure and spoke clearly.
"You are here for your wife, Marika."
Lemuel was stunned. 'Lord Nareth knew of Marika?'
His mind raced. 'It must be Lord Barton's request.'
"Indeed, my lord."
The "Mentor of Disorder's" spirituality surged, "twisting" his meaning.
"To see her, you must strive harder. You will learn all you need from the Thousand Sons."
Lemuel looked up, tears pricking his eyes. He saw Lord Nareth's aura, blazing, unchanging.
He bowed his head, tears falling.
'Lord Nareth means Marika is not dead. To save her, I must learn from the Thousand Sons, their knowledge, their psychic techniques.'
"I understand. I thank you for your guidance."
"Go."
Lemuel bowed deeply, rose, and walked out.
As he left the tent, a tall figure in a crisp, olive-green dress and high-heeled boots approached.
Petronella Vivar, full-fledged court representative of House Carpinus.
Lemuel bowed his head. "Lady Carpinus."
Petronella, studying the patterns on his robe, asked with interest, "And you are?"
As Lemuel and Petronella spoke, Magnus emerged from a conclave of the Magister Templis. He deactivated the Sothmes Sigil.
His mutable eye shifted to orange.
"Hathor, Ahzek."
"Father," they said in unison.
"I want you to pay particular attention to Lemuel Gaumon. He is interesting."
"Gaumon? The aura-reader," Hathor said, surprised that the Black Emperor and now his gene-father were both interested in the Remembrancer.
"Yes. He has already been initiated, probably from the works of North African folk-healers."
"He is finding his own path. I want you to teach him, to help him control his power."
Ahriman frowned. "That will not be easy. He has no mastery of states of mind."
"Then you must teach him."
"Father, I will not disappoint you," Hathor said first.
"Nor I," Ahriman added.
Magnus nodded, satisfied. His eye shifted to purple. He strode from the tent towards Nareth.
Sensing Magnus's powerful presence approaching, Nareth stepped from his tent.
"Nareth, the Khan and Guilliman have opened the way to Ullanor. The final battle will be a war of the ages."
"Father and Horus have taken their places on the grand stage."
"I am going to Ullanor. What of you?"
"I will join you," Nareth said with a smile.
Magnus's eye shifted to a surprised grey. He had read the threads of fate; he knew Horus would be named Warmaster.
Nareth, even without his prophetic gifts, would foresee it.
"I thought you might stay away."
"Of course I'm going." Nareth's expression was calm.
'I also need to try to take Necare's head.'
'There should be two opportunities: the Triumph of Ullanor and the Council of Nikaea. Mortarion will attend both.'
'To avoid suspicion, the best setting is one where many Primarchs are present. At Ullanor, including me, there are ten Primarchs, and Magnus, more renowned for his psychic abilities, will be there. If his foster father's head goes missing, I won't be the prime suspect.'
Magnus, seeing Nareth's certainty, said no more. His eye shifted to brilliant gold.
"I have gained many secrets on Aghoru. I have unlocked the galaxy's mysteries."
"We could make a journey of it, on the way to Ullanor."
Nareth knew Magnus had gained more than the Webway's secrets from Aghoru; he had also deepened his understanding of Warp navigation and related matters.
During the future Solar War, he would cut in from above the ecliptic, allowing the fleets of the Thousand Sons, Sons of Horus, and Word Bearers to bypass Dorn's physical defenses, appearing directly in the heartland between Terra and Mars.
"Very well." He accepted Magnus's friendly challenge.
....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
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