One by one they came and presented themselves, until, at last, the Master of Mankind took His place.
And all of that raucous, rapturous cheering died. Every eye looked to the golden figure holding court at the centre of the dais. Those too far removed, kilometres away from the processional core, looked to erected monitors connected to drifting servo-skull feeds, relaying the images.
The Emperor stood before them all, armoured and armed but never again to march with them to war. Men and women stared up at Him, unaware they were weeping. Even many legionaries’ faces would have shown tear trails down their gene-altered features, had they not been hidden by the grilles of Crusade- and Iron-pattern helms.
Horus was declared Warmaster. The cheers returned. Victory was celebrated. Glory to the Imperium. Glory to the Emperor. Glory to the Warmaster.
All proceeded as expected. No one thought the Emperor would speak again at the Triumph’s conclusion. What was there that He could say? Every soul gathered knew what He intended to do. He would leave the Great Crusade in the hands of His sons, returning to Terra to oversee the workings of the ever-expanding Imperium. Surely nothing He could say would lessen the blow of His abandonment.
And yet, He had spoken once more, one last time, after all.
‘I leave not by choice,’ He promised them. His voice carried across the geoburned plateau, aided by the speaker-drones and vox-emitters liberally populating the muster. ‘I leave not by choice. I leave only because I must. Know this, and know my regret, but know also that I return to Terra for the good of our Imperium.’
From among the Custodian Guard stationed nearby, in a rank behind the primarchs, two incarnations of Ra stood watching in silence. The first was helmed and at attention, his guardian spear clutched in one gloved hand, the warrior himself a perfect mirror of the Custodians standing at his side. The second was unhelmed, smiling faintly, to so vividly recall this breathtaking moment once more.
The Emperor turned from the crowd, moving through the pack of demigods around Him. Already they were regarding their father, and each other, with newfound caution. One of their number had been elevated above the rest – no longer merely first among equals, but definitively named first. Like any family, their reactions and emotions at such a development would prove… variable.
‘Ra,’ the Emperor greeted him. The worthies around them both continued speaking, no longer paying either of them any heed at all.
‘All of this,’ the Custodian said. He gestured not only to the primarchs, but the amassed pomp itself – the geoscaped continent, the sky pregnant with dropships, the gathered regimental masses weeping and cheering below. ‘Why, sire? I never asked it then, and I have always wondered since. Why all of this?’
‘For glory,’ the Emperor replied. ‘To honour the creatures that call themselves my sons. My necessary tools. They feed on glory as if it were a palpable sustenance. Their own glory, of course, no different from the kings and emperors of old. It scarcely crosses their mind that glory matters nothing to me. I could have had a planet’s worth of glory any time I wished it when I walked in the species’ shadow throughout prehistory. Only three of them ever thought to ask why I timed my emergence as I did.’
Ra looked at the gathered pantheon of primarchs. He didn’t ask which three had questioned the Emperor. In truth, he didn’t care. Such lore was irrelevant.
‘And so I gave them Ullanor,’ the Emperor said. ‘They crave recognition for their honour and achievements, and the Triumph was the ultimate expression of that. In that regard, they are just as the Akhean gods and goddesses of Ulimpos were believed to be.’
Ra knew the legends. Zoas Lightningfather. Avena Warbringer. Hermios Swiftrunner. Heraklus Halfgod. Bickering, violent divinities who were powerful enough to act with impunity over the mortals that prayed to them.
‘Humanity’s perception of god-beings has never been consistent,’ the Emperor mused. ‘Give any being great power and the largesse to act with impunity, and what you have is indivisible from those ancient myths. The rage of thunder gods. The battle drums of nations that prayed to war gods. The madness and decadence of powerful kings. That is what true power has always done to the mortal mind – elements of humanity become magnified, more human than human. In that light, are the primarchs not deities?’
Ra grunted, noncommittal. ‘That is not what I meant, my liege. I mean… how could they betray you without warning? Why did you not foresee it?’
For the first time in Ra’s memory, the Emperor hesitated. He wondered if he was the first of the Custodian Guard – perhaps even the first Imperial soul – to ask such a thing. The Ten Thousand had spoken of it amongst themselves many hundreds of times. Consensus on the truth was impossible to reach. Their place was to live in loyalty and die in duty, not question in doubt.
‘You ask about the very nature of foresight,’ said the Emperor. ‘From your words and tone, you suggest it is no different to looking back down a road already travelled, and seeing the places and people you have passed.’
Ra couldn’t tear his eyes from the primarchs. Fulgrim, smiling, always smiling; Magnus, stern in the guarded pretence that none must perceive he bore a troubled mind. Proximity to them even in this moment of glory – especially in this moment of glory – sickened the Custodian, heart and soul. How he ached to strike them down.
‘Is that not the function of foresight, my king? To see the future before it unfolds?’
‘You imply omniscience.’
‘I imply nothing, unless by my own ignorance. I merely seek enlightenment.’
The Emperor seemed to weigh His guardian’s words. ‘I see.’
‘I mean no disrespect, my liege.’
‘I know, Ra. I take no umbrage at your questions. Think on this, then. I prepared them all, this pantheon of proud godlings that insist they are my heirs. I warned them of the warp’s perils. Coupled with this, they knew of those dangers themselves. The Imperium has relied on Navigators to sail the stars and astropaths to communicate between worlds since the empire’s very first breath. The Imperium itself is only possible because of those enduring souls. No void sailor or psychically touched soul can help but know of the warp’s insidious predation. Ships have always been lost during their unstable journeys. Astropaths have always suffered for their powers. Navigators have always seen horrors swimming through those strange tides. I commanded the cessation of Legion Librarius divisions as a warning against the unrestrained use of psychic power. One of our most precious technologies, the Geller field, exists to shield vessels from the warp’s corrosive touch. These are not secrets, Ra, nor mystical lore known only to a select few. Even possession by warp-wrought beings is not unknown. The Sixteenth witnessed it with his own eyes long before he convinced his kindred to walk a traitor’s path with him. That which we call the warp is a universe alongside our own, seething with limitless, alien hostility. The primarchs have always known this. What difference would it have made had I labelled the warp’s entities “daemons” or “dark gods”?’
‘I don’t know, sire. I can’t see what might have changed. I cannot see into the skeins of fate.’
The Emperor was silent for a moment. ‘You speak of seeing the future,’ He finally said, ‘without knowing the limits of what you speak.’
In a heartbeat the Ullanor Triumph was gone, banished between breaths. Ra and the Emperor stood alone on a rocky shore, ankle-deep in icy saltwater. They faced a great cliff, reaching up hundreds of metres – sheer in many places, sloped in others. Even as Ra stared, loose rocks clattered down its surface, splashing into the rising water not far from where they stood.