With the primary Machine-Spirit of The Barber’s Blades lying in ruin, I feel confident about hiding the bomb inside the vent in the makeshift breakroom. After shoving it up there, I use my pilfered privileges to connect the bomb to the vessel’s communication network and close up the vent.

With my new bolter in hand, and a gun dog and skull at my side, I trudge through the ship to the main vox relay. As I walk through the rusting corridors, avoiding the hordes of rats, destructive moss, and other odd infestations I hear a small hiss from my back.

Looking over my shoulder I spot four small snakes growing out of my back. They have bronze and silver scales with a ruff and crown of red feathers. I grimace and shiver in disgust. Cutting them off again clearly isn’t going to help and they’re draining my nutrient and power reserves to grow.

If I keep pulling them out I’ll die of starvation before I can leave the void ship as my spare pouches and Potentia Coils were destroyed in combat. I can only hope that once they stop growing they’ll draw fewer resources. At least this time they’re not attacking the mastiff or me.

I’m certain this is a navigator mutation and there’s nothing I can do about it for now. I can’t perform the purification ritual on myself. No one else can perform the ritual either, at least for now, as it requires E-SIM’s nanites as well as the skills of a biomancer and the body of a navigator as a template. I also don’t know if the ritual will work on me, or for this particular mutation, as it’s not one that I’ve recorded before.

With time being more urgent, I run through the vessel, looting tools, parts, and power packs as I go. I even find some new red robes and a pair of grey dungarees that actually fit me. I suspect they’re for Ogryns and I find wearing them oddly distasteful, as if I am made lesser for wearing clothes belonging to simple Abhumans. This is obviously complete rubbish, yet the feeling persists.

The main vox relay is in poor condition, having been ravaged by the atmosphere creating moss infesting the vessel. Twenty minutes and a heavy flamer later, the infestation has been cleared. I spend six hours crawling between thick wires, sparking transformers, and dangerous emitters moving pieces of the massive machinery around until I am certain they are two working relays that are going to keep working for years without further care, more than long enough for the bomb to be triggered.

As I work, the snakes finish regenerating. I have absolutely no control over them, but they are remarkably intelligent. They start handing me tools and materials I need without prompting with telekinesis. Then they begin using technopathy, interfacing with machines with their minds, fixing code and turning back time to restore parts that have decayed to uselessness.

This is terribly concerning as they’re drawing on my power and knowledge to do so and each time they do, I feel a spike of pain drive through my brain. They don’t stop when I ask them to either.

Unable to take it anymore, I find the nearest medicae facility and convert my new parasites into servitors. It will take some custom implants to make them useful again, but at least they stop bothering me. I return to the relay and send a test message out to the Stellar Fleet and receive a reply.

I confirm my mission is complete and request a shuttle to take me to a quarantine and order a temporary workshop as well. I head to the closest hangar for pickup, then ditch everything I have collected, including the clothes and bolter. Right before the shuttle arrives, I remove the snakes again to avoid any potential contamination from the parts I used on them.

The automated shuttle lands and I jog up the ramp and enter the decontamination chamber that suds, scrubs, and sprays me with harsh disinfectants and sanctified oils. Brian and the Mastiff receive an identical treatment and are separated from me.

It takes less than an hour to reach my own personal cargo container. The container is only fifty cubic metres and has an airlock and a single white room with a sleeping pod. A small crate of nutrient packs sits atop a fold down table attached to the wall. A new red robe, sealed in plastic, lies on top of the crate.

I immediately enter the sleeping pod and begin meditating, desperate to fix my soul before the snakes grow back and start causing trouble again. My domain is much the same as before, though the walls of my house have cracked and the paint has begun to peel. The garden is also a mess, filled with pests, construction waste, brambles, and nettles. The crack in the sky remains the same, though many of the roots stopping the crack from spreading have withered and snapped.

I get out my tools, repair the house, and restore the garden. Once everything is in order I begin burying zombified Servitors beneath the roots of the apple tree, leaving the penitents for last. Time here is strange, passing like a dream. The numbers of bodies lose meaning and the crack in the sky is gradually pulled shut. The roots turn into the aurora that shifts across the sky though the scar in the heavens remains, an ugly wound that the aurora shoots in and out of like great geysers of multi-coloured light.

The penitents go beneath the tree one by one, their memories placed in bottles and tossed into the Warp. Nearby entities have stopped bothering the bottles, but I trap the bottles anyway, knowing that one day, they’ll take some neverborn with them in a spectacular explosion.

I open the back of the van one last time, picturing Alis Riccahl in the back of the van, wrapped in white cloth with a bright red cross decorating it. Instead I get a torrent of muffled screams and a wriggling body.

“By the Throne! Miss Riccahl?”

The body stops moving.

“Is that you, Lord Issengrund? Where am I? What’s happening?”

“Hold still and I’ll get you out of there.”

I grab the canvas and rip it apart, revealing Alis’s gaunt face and matted brown hair. Her chest rises up and down rapidly and her eyes flicker from side to side. I help her sit up and create a glass of iced water and hand it to her. She snatches the glass from my hands and chugs it. Having to hold her breath for a brief moment helps her get herself under control somewhat and she stares at my face for a moment. I move away from her to give her some space and sit in the back of the van, stretching my legs out over the asphalt.

“Take your time,” I say.

I pretend not to hear her as she sniffs, hiccups, and sobs. Soon, there is nothing but quiet breathing.

Alis says, “I’m dead, aren’t I?”

“You are.”

“This isn’t what I expected. Are you dead too, Lord?”

“No, I still live, despite the best efforts of our enemies.”

“Did the others make it?”

“They did not. Just me, the dog, and the skull.”

“You have the Emperor’s own luck, Lord.”

“Perhaps. I have been told many times that the Emperor helps those who help themselves. I built myself a rather sturdy body. I barely made it through.”

“Then I obviously had no chance. I died for something important though, right? My death mattered in the end?”

“It did. The mission is complete. Now I have to decide what to do with you.”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“I stumbled into somewhere I’m not supposed to go, didn’t I? It’s written all over your face. You don’t need to pretend I’m going to escape. I didn’t think heaven was the back of a van though. That’s rather sketchy.”

I laugh, “Well, you’re not wrong, but there is hope for you yet. I might as well show you around. I’m not going to answer all your questions, but one or two won’t hurt, so long as you can answer a question of mine. Step out of the van, Miss Riccahl.”

Alis shimmies out of the body bag and shuffles on her buttocks to the edge of the van, then stands up. She brushes herself off, then looks about.

“A lone house, lots of green stuff? Is this a planet? No, obviously not. That’s not the ocean either, nor is that the real sky. A witch’s dream? How does that work if I’m dead though? The dead dream of nothing.”

“You’re a smart woman, Miss Riccahl. This is my soul and we are in the Warp.”

“Ah, I don’t know anything about the Warp. Well, other than don’t pry, don’t look, and pretend it doesn’t exist.”

“That’s a good policy. We’re a bit beyond that now though. It’s time for you to answer my question. What was the last thing you did?”

Alis scratches her cheek and looks to one side, “I prayed to you, Lord, that you would save me. Figured you were a mite closer than the Emperor and that would give me a better chance of surviving. I’m not sure if I’m saved yet. This is more than I expected though.”

“This is a new experience for me too,” I point up at the sky. “Before you woke up there was a big hole in my soul. I got stuck between two beings far more powerful than I and they made a mess of my soul. One of them destroyed something important and made a big hole. I have since patched that hole. You may have snuck in through there when you died as your soul sought mine for survival.

“The other option is more concerning for me. That by praying to a being with a soul with properties like mine, we have both unknowingly entered a pact with mystery terms. There has been an unknown effect at least, you waking up when you should have remained fully deceased and unaware. Either way, the item that was ripped from me likely protected me from prayers like yours affecting me. Now it is gone. You are the first to end up here. If I am too slow replacing that item, or finding a way to close off my soul better, you will not be the last.”

“Will I live again?”

I say, “That is within my means. The problem is price.”

“The dead own nothing.”

“That isn’t quite true. The Warp has little need for mortal trinkets. This is a realm of dreams. Here it is knowledge and belief that shapes one’s personal reality. The power to persist and make it so is souls.” I tap my chest, “That can come from within,” I gesture towards Alis, “or be stolen from others.”

Alis immediately breaks into a run, sprinting towards the fields. With a small flex of will, I bring Alis back in front of me, hovering slightly in the air.

I prevent her from speaking and continue, “While I applaud your quick thinking, Miss Riccahl, it isn’t going to do you any good here, nor will you come to harm so long as you remain here. I’m not a native Warp entity. I am not that which you are taught to fear.”

I release my hold on her and she stumbles slightly as her feet touch the ground again.

“Take a closer look out into the ocean. Just a glimpse mind you, don’t look too closely. What do you see?”

Alis looks over her shoulder and squints, then falls to her knees and starts puking.

“What are those things?”

“The reason why you are taught to pray to the Emperor, to fortify your will against temptation, to believe soly in the God Emperor of Mankind and the Machine God. Those are Warp entities and most Humans who see them, especially those who peer into the warp, are driven mad. Right now I’m protecting you. You don’t want to go out there. The only reason your mind is intact is because you’re looking at the Warp through me and I am a navigator. I am less burdened by such sights. Please don’t try to run again. The only escape is out there.”

Alis gasps, “You made your point, Lord. What must I do to get out of here?”

“I don’t actually know for sure. I suspect I could put your soul in the body of a Servitor. The problem is I don’t know what the side effects would be. I don’t know how much it would cost me. I am certain it would be a lot of souls and that I do not have enough right now. I had to pay tribute to the Emperor for help with an exorcism.”

I could use a resurrection serum, but I’m not going to tell Alis about them and I am curious as to if I can resurrect someone without one, much like the Emperor does with his Saints.

“He’s real?”

“It’s hard to believe in what you can’t see, yet faith demands we do just that. For most of us.” I point to a different patch of ocean. “The Throne of Terra is over there. It is still dangerous to look upon, but less so than the rest of the Warp.”

“You are not angry that my faith is lacking? You are a strange priest. Can I look, truely?”

“You may.”

Alis stand back up and wipes her mouth on the back of her sleeve. I pass her another glass of water. She takes a few sips then wipes her face on her other sleeve and hands the glass back to me. Alis firms her expression, closes her eyes, turns around to where I am pointing and kneels.

Alis opens one eye and gasps, then opens the others and stares at the Throne of Terra. Golden light reflects off her face and tears stream down her cheeks.

“It’s so warm, so strong!”

I approach Alis and place my hand on her shoulder, “Turn away now, lest you lose your sight.”

“I can’t!”

I step in front of Alis, blocking off the Light of Terra.

“Give it back!” Alis shouts.

I haul Alis to her feet, she struggles against me and I pin her arms against my chest.

I say, “Your eyes are bleeding, Miss Riccahl.”

“No! I don’t care.”

“I do. Do not go looking for it again without me here. You will not find the Throne without me to point the way.”

Alis stops struggling. She leans against me and cries.

I hold back a sigh. I get that she is overwhelmed, but I really don’t want to deal with this right now. Perhaps a distraction?

“I have one more task I must complete before I focus on the Materium. I require your help.”

“What must I do?”

I gently untangle Alis’s hands from my robes then step away from her. Next, I close the van door, picture Clovis, and open it back up. Rather than ripped cloth, the back of the van now holds a wrapped body.

“This is Clovis Pyrestain. We’re going to bury him here so that he does not get eaten out there.”

“This is what was going to happen to me, wasn’t it. You do this for everyone who follows you?”

“I do.”

There’s more nuance to it than that, but there’s no need for Alis to know more than she already does. I especially don’t want her to realise that this is food for me as I won’t be able to revive her if she realises such a big secret. Finishing off someone who prayed to me for safety doesn’t sit well with me, nor does housing her in my soul indefinitely.

“That is kind of you.”

“They did their duty. It is only right that I honour them in turn.” I pick up the body and place it on my shoulder, “Follow me.”

“Yes, Lord.”

I lead Alis to my house. She stares at it but does not comment. We walk down the side path to the back garden and approach the apple tree.

“What now?” says Alis.

“I will bury Mr Pyrestain beneath the tree. I’d like you to pray for him as I do so.”

Alis nods. She clasps her hands and recites, “Incline, O Lord, Thine ear to our prayers, in which we humbly beseech Thy mercy, that Thou wouldst place the soul of Thy servant, which Thou hast caused to depart from this world, into the region of peace and light; and unite in the fellowship of Thy Saints. Amen.”

I slide Clovis’s body between the roots and into the ground, then rest my hands below my belly button, lower my head, and close my eyes.

We stand in silence for two minutes then I say, “It is done. That was a lovely prayer, Miss Riccahl.

Alis sniffs and thumbs her nose, only to freeze a moment as she gazes at the pit beneath the tree. She clears her throat, “Lord, did you shove Balphus Yorn and Clovis Pyrestain into the same hole?”

“I did.”

Alis smirks, “They’d absolutely hate that.”

I laugh, then say, “It is time for me to go. You are welcome to use the house and anything you find within. Do not leave a mess. I will check on you once a day. If time feels like it is stretching on forever, sleep, meditate, or pray. It will help, even if it doesn’t seem like it is.”

“I will. Thank you, Lord, for hearing my prayer.”

“You’re most welcome, Miss Riccahl. I hope you find a measure of peace here.”