Chapter 221: The Corruption That Knows No Bounds

Tyrok Fields. Deployment Zone of the 112th Cadian Shock Trooper Regiment.

Two Kasrkin leapt down from the ramp of the Valkyrie dropship, their matte-black carapace armor glinting under the pale sun. Conversations quieted as they crossed the camp. A drill instructor ordered his men to face their targets, but watched the newcomers until they passed.

Cadians knew what it took to earn that armor. Their world trained its children for war; the Kasrkin were chosen from the best soldiers it produced and trained further for assaults, reconnaissance, and fighting behind enemy lines. Their hellguns could punch through protection that stopped standard heavy fire. When an assault stalled, a commander sent in the Kasrkin.

The hammer of Cadia.

Now the men of the 112th watched to see which barracks they would enter.

The Micro-Eye of Terror was still leaking Warp energy despite the Celestial Engine's suppression. Soldiers who had passed their screenings were developing psychic powers, sometimes without warning. The Black Ships had not arrived, and the Astra Telepathica could not collect the newly awakened quickly enough. An untrained psyker might endanger everyone trying to protect him.

Cadia's High Command had already issued protocols: contain and neutralize, regardless of rank or past service. The Kasrkin had been empowered to act as judge, jury, and executioner.

The lead trooper followed his augur toward a recently built barracks at the western edge of the camp. A group of guardsmen waited outside with their weapons ready. When the pair approached, the men moved away from the door.

A junior officer spotted them and rushed forward, saluting so quickly he nearly dropped his dataslate.

"We tried to restrain him, but... our weapons, they won't touch him, sirs," he stammered. "It's like the las just bends around him…"

"Anyone else inside?"

"No. Just Elai."

"Keep your men outside."

The lead Kasrkin holstered his augur and raised his hellgun. Purity seals stirred beneath its catechism-etched barrel as he pushed open the reinforced door.

Inside the room, a single soldier lay on the lower bunk, sheets drawn up to his chest. Cold air met them at the threshold. Frost rimed the edges of his blanket. A cup, a boot, and a loose datasheet floated above the floor. Las-scars marked the wall behind him.

"Elai?" the Kasrkin asked.

The man sat up with a start, face pale and trembling. Blue psychic light flickered in his eyes.

"S-Sir! Guardsman Elai, Cadian 112th Shock Regiment," he stammered, struggling to salute as his limbs shook uncontrollably.

The Kasrkin stopped a few paces from the bed. He kept his weapon ready while his companion covered the room. The man was still answering to his name. There might be time to calm him, to attempt sedation before the manifestations worsened.

Elai's gaze settled on the hellguns. He spoke before the Kasrkin could begin.

"I've been waiting for you," he choked out, tears welling in his luminous eyes. "So many voices, whispering... they won't stop. I can't hold them back anymore. Please... kill me. Cadia stands."

"Cadia stands," the two Kasrkin replied, raising their hellguns in unison.

Elai lowered his shaking hand. He watched them take aim and made no attempt to move.

....

The world fell away.

Elai plunged into black water. It filled his mouth when he tried to cry out, and he clawed helplessly for the surface. Then he was awake on his bunk, gasping into a sweat-soaked blanket.

The Kasrkin were gone.

He pushed himself upright and stared at the door. Another vision. He had seen what might happen when the Kasrkin arrived, and for a moment he had believed his ordeal was over. The disappointment was almost unbearable.

The las-scars were still on the wall. That much had happened. His own squad had tried to restrain him, then tried to shoot him when he begged them to. He remembered their faces as the bolts bent away. He had wanted to die, and something inside him had refused to let them kill him.

Afterward, he had told them to get out. They were waiting nearby now, close enough to come if he called. He wanted someone beside him badly enough that he almost did. Instead, he gripped the edge of the bunk and kept quiet. They were safer where they were.

"They haven't come yet…" he rasped. "I can't... hold them back much longer…"

He had passed his screenings. He had served faithfully. Neither fact changed what was happening to him. He had become a witch, and he had no training to control his powers. All he could do was resist the voices until help arrived.

Beyond the walls, guardsmen conducted live-fire drills. Elai should have heard the snap of lasbolts, the bark of shouted orders. Instead, there was only whispering.

〈"Cadia will fall. You will all suffer eternal torment in the pit."〉

A thousand voices, all saying the same words in a thousand different tones. The second hand on the wall chronometer moved twice. 

Elai tried to recite a prayer. He knew the words; he had said them before battles, before meals, on nights when sleep wouldn't come. Now he couldn't get through the first line without losing it beneath the whispering.

〈"They call the corpse on the Golden Throne a god. Listen to the truth."〉

〈"He walked the stars, invincible, needing no breath, no food, no sleep. He could not be wounded, could not be slain. So why does he now sit, rotting, on a throne?"〉

"He was wounded defending us," Elai answered. "He suffers for us."

〈"It was his design. The Heresy. The ten thousand years of suffering. All of it."〉

He pressed his hands over his ears. The words were inside his head, but he couldn't stop himself trying.

〈"You wanted to be an artist. Instead, Cadia made you a soldier. You fight, you kill, you die. Because that's what he planned for you. And you pray to him while you die. That too is his will."〉

That stopped him. He had wanted to be an artist. He still wanted it, though he rarely let himself think beyond the next battle anymore. There were faces he wanted to draw while the men they belonged to were still alive to complain about the likeness.

He had never thought that wish made his oath worth less. Hearing it used against him frightened him more than the threats. They knew things he had never spoken aloud.

"Get out," he whispered. His voice rose to a shout. "Get out of my head!"

The voices answered with visions.

He saw Terra. He had never been there, yet he knew it at once. Since the curse had taken hold, such certainties kept appearing in his mind.

Armored giants fought beneath shattered banners while men died under their feet. Elai recognized the stories of the Great Betrayal and the Siege of Terra, but these were no images from a chapel wall. He could hear the wounded. He could smell the burning cities. The Warmaster's name, Horus, burned into his mind like a brand.

With every scene came the same accusation: the Emperor had arranged it. Every sacrifice had served His ambition. Every betrayal had been permitted because it brought Him closer to the worship He desired. Elai tried to reject the claims, but another vision struck before he could gather his thoughts.

They showed him humanity before the Imperium. Cities stood beneath clear skies, and people walked their streets without the fear he had lived with all his life. The voices called them rational, enlightened, proud. They insisted this was what mankind had lost.

〈"To become a god, one must be worshipped. But how do you make a rational species fall to its knees?"〉

〈"You break them. You plunge them into darkness, into war, into hopelessness. Then offer them a savior to believe in, a Throne to kneel before. And in their faith, the god is born."〉

Elai saw the Emperor, not as a man, but as a seething sphere of golden light, crowned with a grotesque face twisted in rapture.

Worlds burned beneath that face. Species vanished. Generations marched to their deaths with prayers on their lips. The thing watching them delighted in its own cleverness, and the voices forced Elai to share its pleasure. For a horrible moment, the suffering seemed justified. He understood why it had been done.

"Lies!" Elai screamed. He hurled himself into the wall, smashing his forehead into the steel plating. "The Master of Mankind suffers! Every soul on Holy Terra hears his screams in their dreams!"

Blood ran over his lip. He stayed with his forehead pressed against the wall and tried to finish the prayer. The voices were as clear as ever. They mocked his pain, then rose into screams that drowned out his words. Elai bent forward, unable to shut them out. He couldn't remember how long he had been resisting. He was afraid he had already failed.

A light pierced the gloom.

Elai looked up and saw a man upon a throne, radiant and impossibly beautiful.

He knew that face. He had prayed before its likeness all his life. Now the Emperor was looking directly at him, and the voices were recoiling from His presence.

〈"Do not listen to lies and slander,"〉 the man said, without moving his lips. His voice echoed in Elai's mind. 〈"Strengthen your resolve, my child. For me. For your world."〉

Elai wept, overwhelmed with joy. The pressure in his skull eased. He could hear the training ground again: an order, a volley, an instructor shouting at someone who had fired too soon. His comrades were still out there. He hadn't brought the horrors in his head down upon them.

"I'm trying," he whispered. "I don't know how to stop them."

The man waited for him. There was no anger in His face, no disgust at what Elai had become. The warmth of His presence reached him even through the cold of the barracks.

Elai had been willing to die to keep his comrades safe. He had not allowed himself to hope that he might be saved as well. Now he imagined walking outside to tell them it was over. He wanted to see their faces when he did.

He no longer needed to resist alone. He reached out.

The man reached back, and Elai welcomed the warmth into his mind.

And in that moment, reality shattered.

Elai saw Cadia fall. He saw his regiment butchered. He saw the lie.

In the vision, the men outside lay dead across the training ground. He knew their faces. He tried to turn away, but the vision followed him, showing him everything he had been struggling to prevent.

The golden throne vanished with the radiant man upon it.

In their place stood a thing of nightmare, a two-headed, birdlike daemon, its laughter shrill and cruel.

The name of the god it served filled Elai's mind.

Tzeentch. The Changer of Ways. The Great Conspirator.

He tried to shut it out again. The presence he had welcomed filled his mind, leaving him nowhere to retreat.

Elai screamed. He seized the laspistol from his bedside, shoved the muzzle into his mouth, and pulled the trigger.

"Click∼."

Nothing.

He pulled again, harder. He knew the weapon was charged. It should have fired. The daemon kept laughing.

A drone shimmered into view near the ceiling. Elai barely registered it before a pulse of energy passed through him. His outline blurred, and his body collapsed against the bunk.

His soul was wrenched free and torn apart in the space between dimensions.

....

Outside, guardsmen rushed toward the noise. They found only Elai's corpse, its outline wavering before settling into solidity. Psychic backlash had scorched his uniform and the bedding beneath him. Ash drifted onto the floor.

The first man through the door held the others back. He kept his lasgun trained on the bunk until the last flicker faded, then lowered it a little. Elai's hand was still clenched around his pistol**, the muzzle resting against his bloodied mouth**.

"He had the pistol in his mouth," one muttered. "Guess he did what we couldn't…"

Nobody answered. The guardsman at the door wanted to cover the body. He looked at the scorched bedding and decided to wait. He wasn't going to let anyone touch Elai yet.

"Keep the doorway clear. Someone get the officer."

A man beside him made the sign of the Aquila.

"May your soul find rest upon the Throne, brother."

Their breath misted in the cold room. One of the men pulled his collar higher.

"…Is it just me, or is it colder all of a sudden?"

"Probably the damned Talon superweapon blocking the sun again…"

They did not notice the faint blue glow lingering on the walls or the whispers beginning anew.

.....

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