232 – WHEN THE TIME COMES

‘When the time comes’, indeed. I’ll just have to make sure it stays the fuck away for a decade or two while I gather power. The Emperor returning in all his glory would be pretty useful for giving Chaos a black eye and pushing back their influence.

Though I would go back on my word without a second thought if I felt like whatever fucky sorcery Valdor came up with was a bust. I much preferred the Emperor in his current state to a raving lunatic with a broken mind and the Psychic power of a god mucking about. Or worse, The Dark King, the Chaos God of Ruin, and what the Emperor very nearly turned into during his duel with Horus.

I shuddered. I did not need a fifth fucking Satan, I already had four of the assholes eyeing me! 

Plus, I could probably make sure they didn’t mess up the resurrection if I were a part of the effort. If it seemed like it was going to be a bust, I might as well sabotage it from the inside. 

On the flip side, even in the best-case scenario, I needed to be powerful enough to tell the returned Emperor to get bent if he started getting pushy after his resurrection.

Or at the very least, I needed to be able to escape and have a fortified base of operations he couldn’t reach me in. I needed the Jericho Reach subdued, the Warp-gate firmly under my control, and all my personal powers vastly expanded.

For the last entry on that list, having the Emperor’s own genetic material would certainly be helpful. I couldn’t deny that my greed played a sizable part in my agreeing to the Lion’s request. The Emperor was the most powerful sane mortal Psyker since the Old Ones. I was mentally drooling at the mere idea of making a Psyker template for my Avatar out of his genetic sample. 

“Do you have any objections to going ahead with our trade right now?” I asked. “My information for your genetic sample.”

“I have none,” he said. “But to clarify, I want all the information you have on the person attempting to heal the Emperor’s mind and soul, what you know about their actions, and all else connected to it.”

“Agreed,” I said. “But the majority of the information will lose its value the moment I name the person in question, so I would like to request you pay in advance.”

He didn’t say anything. Instead, he swiftly grabbed his helmet, stuck it to his waist with a mag-lock and then plucked a single strand of grey hair from his scalp, which he held out for me with a look of impatience on his weathered face.

I took it and absorbed it in an instant. We have a no-return policy at Echidna Enterprises. Like with Fulgrim’s, the tiny genetic material was like a spark that illuminated a complete template in the dark recesses of my mind, thus far out of my reach, but now available to me in its entirety. 

He said the Emperor used this artifact to build his Custodes, and even the Primarchs. Was that why I had these lingering templates that merely needed a fragment of the original to become available? It was like only an imprint remained, all else having long been scoured clean from the eldritch ‘artifact’s’ memory by aeons of starvation. But not entirely. 

What else could be lying in the darkness, waiting? Maybe even those imprints faded over time, and only those remained that had been engraved relatively recently. I seriously doubted the Emperor made this thing. He never struck me as having the Eldritch mad scientist vibe. He probably found it somewhere. 

Where did it come from originally, though? Some ancient xeno race that mastered the art of biomancy? Or maybe genetics? 

“Thank you,” I said, giving the Primarch a serious nod even as a part of my mind continued theorising. This was big, huge. “The man you seek is known as The King in Yellow, and he has been busy building an army loyal only to him these last ten thousand years. His influence is vast, a web spread across the Imperium, and his army is likely unrivalled in the Imperium by any other. His goal is, and always has been, learning the True Name of the Emperor.”

“You mentioned that I would know him,” the Lion said, frowning. “That he is someone from ‘my time’.”

“Yes,” I said, nodding. “Very few know his true name, and I doubt any outside his inner circle who learned of it lived to tell the tale. But I saw the story of one who did. His name is Constantin Valdor.”

His visible reaction was mild. The widening of his eyes, the slight parting of his lips, the sudden tension in his posture. But I sensed more than mere eyes ever could. I felt his shock. Like a thunderstrike, it echoed and sent shockwaves through his aura and into the Warp. 

I felt the waters churning, and for a moment, it felt like the Immaterium itself was holding its breath. The suspense stretched for eternity, but was over in an instant, and everything continued on as normal.

But it was not. That thing I felt, I had no idea what it was, but if I had to guess … it was a ‘shatterpoint’. A crucial moment in time where the threads of fate all coalesced, and the path the future would take was decided. 

Did I just somehow fuck up Fate? I mean, I know my existence is like a massive middle finger to ‘canon’, but what I’d just done probably went beyond that and derailed a canon event.

Well. Huh.

“On that note,” I said, continuing as if nothing had happened. The Lion was a Primarch, so even if he was shocked speechless — which he was not — he could still multitask and listen to what I was saying while simultaneously freaking out. Which he also wasn’t doing. His mental state snapped back to the usual stoicism annoyingly fast. “I believe what started him on his quest was an agreement with Leman Russ, since the Wolf Lord was last heard from when he was heading deep into the Warp, supposedly searching for some miracle fruit that could heal all wounds. One that could heal the Emperor’s body, while Valdor worked on finding a way to heal his mind and soul, which started him on his quest to uncover his True Name.”

“Leman still lives?” He asked, with a hint of hope. 

“I do not know,” I said, shaking my head. “As I said, he was last heard from before he entered the Warp on his own quest more than ten millennia ago. He could still be searching, the atemporal nature of the Warp making it feel like only days have passed to him, or he could be dead, or even imprisoned in one of the Chaos Gods’ realms. If he still lives, I think your Father is the only one who can beckon him home.”

I could almost taste his thoughts. He was feeling a tiny bit scammed, thinking, ‘What use was I when Leman was going to find the super magical healing fruit, anyway? ‘

That emotion left his aura a moment later as his mind quickly caught up with his emotions. He was a masterful strategist and knew that relying on a single point of failure not to fail was not a recipe for success. 

Really, it was tempting fate. Having options, alternative plans, and fallback options was always better than not having them. My value might have dropped a little in his eyes, but he also knew that I was here and already had the capability to heal the physical form of his father. 

Meanwhile, who knew whether Russ was even alive?

“I see,” he said, his emotions settling as he gestured for me to continue. 

“Finding Valdor will be a challenge,” I said. “If that is something you want to do. He has somehow claimed a slice of the Warp for himself, or maybe it’s so pseudo-dimension? A pocket space? Maybe a section of the Webway? Anyway, the point is that the space he operates from doesn’t exist in real space, and the only thing I know about is that one of the entrances was located in the Hive City of Queen Mab, but that was a few hundred years ago, it might still be, I’m not … aware of the details. What I do know is that the last group to find their way inside was a small party led by one Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn and Gideon Ravenor. That’s the one trail you can follow.”

“How accurate is this information?” He asked. “How sure are you that what you are telling me is the truth? I have known more than one precognitive who was absolutely sure of their understanding of the future up until the moment their vision came crashing down around them.”

“This is no precognition,” I said calmly. “I have told you not what will happen, but what has already happened. The future is always in flux, but the past is not. There is only ever a singular past while there are an infinite number of possible futures, trying to comprehend it all understandably drives some mad. I was not blessed with that talent, which might be a blessing in disguise.”

Well, I would not be blessed with that talent while my soul and Realm remained separate from the Warp at large. 

“I see,” he said, nodding. I wasn’t sure that he did see, but whatever. I’d been paid already, and if his distrust made him avoid calling in the favour I now owed, all the better. 

“I might as well share what else I know about the fate of your brothers,” I said after a moment, not letting the silence linger between us. “The information that’s been paid for by your brother, Guilliman. I won’t double-charge you.”

Not that he had anything else I wanted, because I doubted he would hand over any of the no-no toys his Dark Angels had squirrelled away on The Rock. 

He nodded again, and with a deep breath, I began talking, repeating everything I’d told Guilliman word-for-word. By the end, the Lion looked ready to bolt off and go murder someone. I wasn’t sure whether that would be Dark Eldars I’d said likely killed Jagathai Khan, or if the target of his ire would instead be Corvus Corax, who had spent twelve thousand years brooding and haunting Lorgar while the Imperium decayed. Maybe Orks to avenge Vulkan? The Black Legion, to avenge Dorn? 

Maybe even he didn’t know, but he was looking downright homicidal, practically vibrating with murderous intent. Outwardly, only the slight grinding of his teeth and the furrowing of his eyebrows showed his rage.

Now, I could either gently nudge him to sod off back to Nihilus and murder the hell out of some unfortunate Chaos warband … or I could maybe find him a target closer to home.

No, I shouldn’t. I shook my head inwardly, dismissing the silly idea. Having a Primarch as stubborn as him around would probably make truly conquering the planets held by the Imperium in the sector nearly impossible. Sure, he might go along with murdering the current high command of the Achilus Crusade for how atrociously bad at their jobs they are, but after that? He wouldn’t want the Tau taking command; he’d much rather name a competent military officer to take over the reins.

Which would be a pain. So no, it was better if he went back to doing Lion things at the other end of the galaxy posthaste.

“If that is all,” he started slowly, shackling his simmering fury with his iron will. “I should be away. Is there a way for me to contact you?”

I was pretty sure he was asking for the location of this planet. Alas, I had different plans. I didn’t want the Imperial fleet knocking down my door again.

“This should do it,” I said, suppressing a smirk as I held out a hand. In it, a bundle of white tendrils grew into a fist-sized toy made in the image of Fulgrim. It looked like one of those bobbing-head figurines with an oversized head. “Squeeze it until it pops, and I’ll know to come and where to find you. It will probably work through the Great Rift, but Terra is on this side, so I doubt that will be tested.”

Like his brother months ago, the Lion stared blankly at the toy I was handing him. I squeezed it lightly, which made the toy Fulgrim’s large head inflate like a balloon. 

There was no tactical, strategic or any other benefit to it, but I just couldn’t help myself. I liked messing with people; the more stuck-up or serious they were, the better.

I stiffened as I felt the Warp boil over, and the toy being torn out of my hand. All around me, the ethereal image of a dark forest clashed with reality for all but a moment before it snapped back. By then, I stood alone.

“Rude,” I muttered, my eyes tracing that strange forest realm of his sinking into the depths of the Warp like a submarine. It faded out of my sight much sooner than it should have. I shook my head, then allowed myself a smile. “Well, that happened. Could have been worse.”