Strange is the tide of fate.
For the two faces, the two beings, the two mirrors.
As time passes the more certain the events they have foreseen to varying degrees will come to pass. Yet tides change, as all things do, and like seeing through blurred glass, it changes. They don't know how, or why, but they can feel it, in the back of their minds. Sometimes things only one had foreseen now, both do. Sometimes things neither did, one sees.
Sometimes one saw a tide of darkness enveloping him, sometimes it saw a face far paler than his in a fanged grin at the edge of his sight. Sometimes he was in that tide of darkness trapped.
Sometimes he saw a pale gaunt face blurred as if seen through mirrored glass, familiar yet unrecognizable, noble yet terrifying, smiling at him.
Sometimes he saw two feathers, one of the deepest black, another of the purest white, both tinged with crimson blood.
The orders eventually came. Eventually, two entire years after the mortal´s entombment, the Eighth and Fifteen legions came together for a campaign in the northeastern reaches of the galaxy. Tensions were high amongst both legions, both still remembered the ending of their last joint compliance, and now both were supposed to campaign for two years.
Magnus and his sons still remember bitterly how the Nighthaunter had bombarded them, all because they sought the knowledge hidden in the libraries of their last compliance. Their psychic shield holding the barrage until the Crimson King finally relented to the Nighthaunter´s stubbornness.
The Night Lords Primarch's insistence yet was not driven by hate from his brother, nor for knowledge itself, rather it came from the Emperor´s own decree. It came from his world´s experience with the light the Emperor had brought to Nostramo, a world who had never seen the sun. They learned of the wider galaxy, of worlds and cultures, of city after city who dwelled under the basking light of their star, while Nostramo basked in nothing but shadows and darkness. The Emperor's light, the knowledge he had brought with him, it did not free Nostramo. No, Nostramo had been shackled by the light, wrapping it in misery. Only because they learned things they were not yet ready to live with.
Yet much had changed since those days. The Nighthaunter had changed much. Who would he be in this moment if not for the unlikely pebble who appeared at his doorstep? Only the Emperor perhaps knows.
When Magnus first convened with his brother about the campaign he noticed clearly that he was not the same, yet he was. Like the calm before the storm, his brother's face was not as stern, his tone was more calm, yet behind those black inky eyes Magnus could see clear as day that there was something dreadful occupying his mind.
He had come to the meeting expecting the low hiss and the modicum of contempt from his brother Konrad, not the deceptively serene face he had shown, and he had not expected, in his wildest dreams, that Konrad would have sought a favor from him. The Konrad. The brother who had no brothers in all but name, had asked a favor of him. He had even told Magnus he would accept his review of all knowledge these worlds may have. He would allow the same terms and more, of what Magnus had almost begged in the Tower of Serenity, all for the small favor he asked.
The only thing remaining from Konrad to truly make the Crimson King completely and utterly wrongfooted would have been an apology. An apology for his actions at the Tower of Serenity, an apology that, thankfully never came.
It was strange for Magnus to hear the Nighthaunter in such a manner, it would have been strange for everyone of their brothers. When they convened, many things were decided, the worlds each would take in this short joint campaign, the worlds both would aim. Each brother had but part of their full Legions, but their lack of manpower was completely offset by the presence of their respective gene-fathers.
Part of the Night Lords legion, had in truth, returned to Nostramo. Part of the Thousand Sons, well only Magnus knew where his sons were.
Part of the Eighth returned home, for the one reason the Nighthaunter had commanded, to confirm the false reports and to cull the poison that had started to infect the Legion. He had no hope it would do anything, but Melkor, the damned mortal, said he hated his legion…
He hated it, he hated it, he hated it because it was poisoned by the same scum he tried to cull. He hated that scum, he hated it. The only thing he hated more was himself. If there was one last thing he would do, before letting the galaxy at its fate. It would be culling the scum once and for all. He sent Sevetar home, he sent Sevetar, the part of the Atramentar, the few companies he did not hate, the few companies who understood his ways.
The rest, the rest he wished he could purge them. Purge them in one clear day. In one clear stroke. He wished he could throw their wretched lives and burn them in the sacrificial pyre, to clear his Legion once and for all. Yet he could not. How could he justify a purge of nearly the entire legion in a single campaign. It was simple, he could not.
The first compliances were quickly achieved. Like the strong windstorm ripping away the forest beneath. The Legions advanced and advanced and advanced, until both entered into contact with an advanced tecno-federation made up of dozens of systems.
The initial contacts between the Imperial naval Forces and the fleets of this tecno-federation were far more even than they should have been. What they had lacked in numbers, the federation amply made up for in technology.
The void shields of most crafts were scattered like leaves under the summer breeze and the only thing that prevented immediate vessel destruction was the adamantium plating all imperial warships possessed.
The initial probing strikes from both legions had been repelled, yet the Primarchs obtained much needed data from these skirmishes. It was then, that the true marvel of their creation was shown.
In a coordinated pincer movement, both expeditionary fleets lunged to their targets overwhelming the techno-federation defense fleets. Yet in the months-long campaigns, as both fleets were battered and in return hammer their vessels one thing became far to clear.
The federation started to focus their defense on the expeditionary fleet led by the Crimson King. Why they had simply left the Nighthaunter to deal with orbital defense installations, planetary defense fleets, and their bastion worlds was yet to be apparent.
There had been few expeditionary fleets who ventured deep into the Ghoul Stars, and even just skirting its edge was something most shipmasters preferred to avoid. The Nighthaunter and his, had no such qualms. Nostramo was on the edge of that nightmarish section of the Galaxy. Their star, an eternal reminder and example of the many others in that part of the galactic void.
It was unsurprisingly so, that his fleet carved far more quickly the territory of this tecno-federation. A federation of humans, something they found when the fleet reached the bastion world classified as 3476-78.
Konrad walked through the small tunnel like corridors of a federation vessel. They were clear, and clean, their polished metal surfaces reflecting the vessel´s interior light in such a way there was hardly a shadow in sight. Unfortunately, this was the Nighthaunter, and where he walked the shadows walked as well.
He was armored in the Nightmare Mantle, his war time regalia, in his arms tied to his hands were the dual bladed lightning claws his sons called Mercy and Forgiveness. He had no name for them. Tied to his armor by magnetic joints were the power knives known as Widowmakers, just as his talons of war, he had also never named these.
The corridor stretched for another hundred feet, there were the odd ventilation shafts he felt the desire to traverse, and in front of him, covered by smoke from damaged internal systems caused by the void battle concurrently happening, was a group of a hundred or more men holding defense positions against the boarding of his sons.
Their weapons could knockback Astartes with their power, and if concentrated melt through the ceremite and plasteel the plate was made from. Yet that would not avail them in any way.
The Nighthaunter moved faster than they could see. He leaped from wall to wall, like a moving shadow. When they noticed something moving he was already in their mist, claws slick with their blood, their weapons dropped on the ground in the sheer terror of his presence. They were humans opposing the Imperium, mortal humans. Who knelt on the floor praying to some uncaring god or fell crying in despair as he cleaved their comrades. He fell far too quickly for them to see the blows coming, like a whirlwind of death. The only thing plain for all to see, the aftermath of the demigod´s blows..
In the span of but a few seconds, a hundred and fifty mortals were split in half, bones crushed, guts gushing out, blood drenching the very metal floor. Their weapons, so akin to the Volkite weaponry he knew yet more advanced laying on the floor, useless against the geneforged body of the Emperor´s son.
He stopped and slowly he reached down. He grabbed what seemed to be a rifle. It was so comically small in his hands, his finger was larger than the trigger button.
He heard stuttering, someone trying to say something yet unable to in the presence of the Emperor's weapon of terror.
Curze turned to it. Behind him from whence he had come, he could hear footsteps, running soldiers trying to pin him… Unfortunate for them that the corridor they were in was rigged with multiple melta bombs, who perchance exploded exactly when all were in range. Curze didn't even turn, nor did he click on a switch, they had been timed. And his foes´ timing was impeccable.
The face of the stuttering mortal was pale, with long dark hair, bearing this world´s version of a flak vest, substantially more expensive.
The dismembered corpses of his detonated foes rushed to where he was like a strong wind, blood spattered on his pale face, mangled body pieces struck against his armor. The stuttering mortal´s face became half covered in the liquid remains of her comrade´s guts.
"Mercy," it begged. "Spare me,." it cried beneath that filth.
Curze did not spare her.
He grabbed her slowly by the neck, and with a single twitch of his fingers Curze broke her neck. There was no pain, no slow asphyxiation, no excruciating pain. There was just a single merciful twitch and she dropped dead to the floor. Her amber pupils dilated as her muscles relaxed in death.
Curze´s lips moved slightly in swift quiet motions and then he turned back on this mortal who, although terrified, looked him in the eye and spoke her words. The mortal who, despite her terror, met the gaze of the 8th son and begged for mercy. Yet Curze moved forward, this battle was not yet won.
He walked calmly through another hallway. This one leading to the command deck. He brute forced bulkheads open, hydraulic locks breaking beneath his gene-forged strength. Until he reached the last one.
The last one, the one shielding the command deck, he did not force it open. He grabbed the last melta bomb he possessed, and planted it on the bulkhead door.
He took a few step backs and when it exploded with a loud crackling boom, he moved into the smoke. Like a shadow he easily dodged volkite beams meant for him and he appeared behind the few remaining mortal defenders of the vessel.
They turned to face him, and then their weapon fell to the floor with a metallic clang and an oppressive silence fell on the command deck.
To their eyes, he was like a god standing in their mist. A being so powerful that no matter what they did they would be at his mercy. He was the shadow in the back of their every mind, he was fear incarnate and one cannot kill fear. It is a crucial thing for existence, all beings possess fear, and Konrad Curze was mankind´s fears incarnate, bound in flesh.
He was terror, and yet a single volkite beam pierced that silence bringing the Primarch back into action. It struck the Nightmare Mantle, igniting the flesh cape and leaving a black burn mark in the false ribcage it possessed as Curze weaved into the back of the mortal who shot him.
He grabbed him by the throat and brought him to his eye level. It was an officer by his clothing. A pride filled man.
"Do you not know death when you see it?" Curze spoke in their own tongue.
The man started to cry and beg. "I am sorry," it said. "I am so sorry," it said. "Please, spare us." It said.
Curze eyed him for a few seconds before deciding what to do. He brought his power claw to the man´s face, its energy field deactivated and slowly peeled away the skin from his shooting arm.
The man screamed.
When the Nighthaunter was finished, he carefully put the man back down. Something uncharacteristically kind considering he had just flayed one of this man's arms. He turned to the rest, paralyzed in his presence.
"This and more will be the price of future rebellion."
The vessel was his, and so he left them. They were in shock paralyzed by his presence, yet even when he left them, they remained unmoving, until the Nighthautner´s sons reached them.
Curze stared at the world below through a viewing port. The orbital battle still raged on, but his Shipmaster had it well in hand. Victory was assured, it always had been assured. The Nighthaunter had known the only thing keeping their fleet as an organized and cohesive force had been their admiral, the chief officer who took residence upon the vessel his boot now walked.
Without it, their fleet would collapse under the barrage of Imperial macro canons and lance batteries. Even as he ignored it, and instead stared at the little orb of green, blue and brown below, he knew there would be hardly any survivors from this engagement. Their cohesion broken it left them easy targets.
It turned slowly, even as their heavens were ignited by the flashes of naval weaponry freely being unleashed. It looked so serene, peaceful and happy. It looked so unlike Nostramo, so unlike depressed Nostramo.
A deep blue lance beam passed before the Nighthaunters eyes. Silent in the void, silent even as plasteel was broken, adamantium bent, and ceremite shattered from both sides.
He closed his eyes, and he returned to the Nightfall, the teleport beacon installed in his battleplate taking him back to his flagship, close to his command throne.
He sat on it, information flooded his mind, vessel damage, ammunition status, fleet dispositions, and many, many other things.
He cleaned the battle in less than half an hour, the blink of an eye in void combat of such a scale. The federation fleet was broken and the Night Lords possessed complete supremacy in the void around the bastion world designated as 3476-78.
The fleet instinctively arrayed themselves for infiltration and drop pod assault. Curze did not give that order. When they were all in position, everyone anticipated his command. Curze sighed after thinking for a few seconds and finally gave his order.
"Blow them to oblivion."
With the bastion world of 3476-78 neutralized the 8th legion fleet proceed to rendezvous once more with Magnus the Red and his Thousand Sons. Neither legion was in truth behind schedule, in fact the 15th and the 8th had managed to complete their objectives in about half and a third of their allotted time respectively.
They met aboard the Nightfall, at the Nighthaunter´s request. His sanctum was dimly illuminated this time, the blue orbs barely shedding enough light to see any of the Primarchs if their sheer presence didn't in turn grab everyone's attention.
Both clad in their panoplies of war, they strode inwards, ignoring the table with the twenty seats, ignoring the obsidian throne of the Nighthaunter, ignoring the armory and the never used bed belonging to the Emperor´s judge. They strode until they were in front of the stasis coffin, the mortal resting peacefully inside it, his arms split open as if knives had surgically pierced it through the entire length, opening the mortal´s veins.
Magnus eyed the mortal. He was curious why his brother kept him in his Sanctum, why he kept him alive in stasis. He was somewhat short for a mortal, his body most likely still growing, perhaps having just reached his second decade of life before being put in stasis. Brown hair, emerald eyes and a skin fairly pale, though considering he worked alongside nostramans he should be called tanned. For indeed he was not Nostraman.
While Magnus looked at Melkor with barely veiled curiosity, Curze looked almost serene, perhaps even saddened. His brother knew Curze had never been the best with his own emotions. He had heard of his apparently absent madness, of his fits. All understandable to a point, he had perhaps the worst upbringing of all the Primarchs, save their Nucerian brother.
This, though, did not excuse the Nighthaunter from his detestable methods, yet he could hardly question them. Over the course of the campaign the excess he had come to expect, he had come to see at the Tower of Serenity all those years ago, seemed absent.
Curze was unmistakably different. Focused yet reserved, controlled yet unknowable. And still Curze looked at the fragile mortal.
"The favor," Curze said, his voice a mix between the prideful and maddened facade he tried to keep up yet undercut by a tone almost of grief. "I asked earlier. I want you to heal the mortal."
"His wounds are severe, that much is apparent, but a skilled apothecary would be able to-" the Crimson king spoke, before his brother softly interrupted.
"His circumstances are unique, Magnus. He will die if I deactivate the stasis field. I know we were never close, yet I am still asking you for this." There was a low hiss, his tone severe but by far the least contemptuous he had ever heard Curze use with him.
"The Emperor-"
"Will not know of him. Not unless there is another choice." There was no doubt in the Nighthaunter´s voice. Thinly veiled hate seeped to his words when he spoke of the Master of Mankind, and it was plain for Magnus to see. Hate born of pain.
Magnus was going to say their father or the Sigillite would be the most adequate for Curze´s conundrum, yet it was clear his words would not be heeded. It was clear this mysterious mortal meant alot to Curze, and the Nighthaunter had already offered ample payment for such measly favor. The knowledge in the libraries of the tecno-federation they faced in this campaign would be far more valuable.
He sighed and started gathering the unknowable energies of the warp. It would be a simple biomancy spell, something to energize the mortal´s cells into healing. For his arms to knit themselves back together once the stasis field was shut down.
"There will be a time, Magnus." The Crimson King ignored his brother and focused on the warp currents gathering around him. At the edge of his eyes he could almost picture two shadows, one laying over the mortal, formless yet infinitely dark and somehow he felt it was crowned. The other upon his brother, far darker, an inescapable void that covered his brother like a mantle of midnight. "When you think you have no choice, when you fail and nothing remains for you. When that time comes Magnus, remember. We are all failures."
The warp whirled in the chamber, both Primarch feeling the currents swirling around the stasis coffin. It was not much, reality still had a strong tether around them, it is more like a needle punctured the immaterium and allowed it to drop into the material plane, yet this was more than enough to convince the mortal´s cells to knit themselves back together.
Curze took a deep breath feeling more at ease in real space than he had felt in a long time, and deactivated the coffin. The crimson vitae flowed slightly as it had been before, but then it slowly stopped. His veins had been the first to knit itself, then muscles, nerve endings and finally the skin. The warp enriched everything in his body, healing what was broken, fixing what could be fixed.
It was wondrous how much the warp could do. It was a place of unimaginable energy, able to heal what would never be healed, able to rewrite the very laws of the universe. Yet as all things wondrous it had its own dangers. It was also a place where entities lived. Entities that older, unenlightened realms of humanity might have called them divine or demonic, yet they were neither. Beyond the veil of reality, these beings just were. Things yet to be classified, yet their father had told them, told especially Magnus to be careful with these beings, and especially those who were bound to the ruinous powers. Not that it mattered, he was far too smart to be deceived by them.
Curze did not share his brother's opinion. He never delved deeply into the immaterium, in truth he never delved at all. Yet he despised it, there was no order, no justice in the warp, just torment and strength borrowed from something, not his own.
The energies whirled around Magnus, it healed the mortal, yet he remained asleep, but there was nothing he could do. Blood flowed in his veins, life breathed from his lungs, the only thing that remained was to wait. He turned to his brother, his single green for the moment staring into the Nostraman blackness of his brother.
"It is done, Konrad. His body is resting for now, he will awaken eventually."
Curze nodded silently. He did not thank his brother, he struggled to speak those words yet, especially to his brothers, after all he would not speak a lie, not unless he had no other choice… Choice… His mind wondered about that word for a few seconds.
He led his brother back to the center of his sanctum, guiding towards the Kyroptera Chamber, at the edge of his Sanctum; they had a battle ahead to plan.
But then Magnus saw Curze´s body freeze. He froze for a few seconds at the edge of the sanctum´s table, and then he started to scream. He screamed and as he screamed he hastily removed his plate. He screamed and clawed himself, his fingernails puncturing deep into his snow white skin. Chair were flung around as he moved around, the walls shook with their impact. Blood dripped from his brother's skin.
Magnus tried to intervene, to hold his brother and stop the clawing, yet even without the Nightmare mantle Curze was as elusive as ever, he clawed himself, and slipped from his brother´s grasp, or he struck at the Cyclops to free himself. Even with the use of his psychic might Curze seemed to slip his grasp, like a void like shadow stretching and condensing as he wounded his own body.
The sanctum´s doors opened, a group of Night Lords Astartes entered and tried to arrest their lord. It was a doomed attempt, the last time their lord had a psychic fit like this had been when he met the Emperor. Midnight clad plates were thrown around like they were mere pebbles.
Magnus heard one of them shouting something in Nostramo. Giving orders and then turned to his brothers trying to calm him he presumed. It did not work.
The walls shook and they shook and while in the Sanctum main room the Nighthaunter shrieked, cried, clawed and bled as his brother and his sons tried to hold him. The walls shook, and around the coffin books fell from the shelves in that room. A book fell upon the mortal´s head.
He woke up dizzy, yet his mind quickly went into overdrive as the walls shook around him. He turned to see where he was. He could hear shrieks and cries, yet he could not see from whence they came. "A hard vision." He thought, not surprised. He knew enough about the Nighthaunter that such a thing wasn't exactly unexpected.
It took a few seconds for his terran eyes to adjust to the Nostraman darkness so customarily present in eight legion vessels, thankfully until his mortal eyes adjusted he went to preysight with his bionic implant. The colors shifted and he could observe much better.
There was a book turned on its back beside him, most likely what woke him up. It was written in Nostraman, a random page stood open. He was still somewhat an amateur concerning the Nostraman runes. It was a writing system much more based on symbolism and meaning assigned to symbols than letters making sounds, sounds who made words and those words possessed meaning. His native tongue was based on the latter, so he was quite slow to adapt to his new Nostraman reality, something which contrasted with the far easier quicker grasping of high gothic.
He opened the book, as he opened the room shook and he landed on a random page. He sighed and shrugged. There was nothing he could do about the vision fits of the Primarch he served. He could just try and help him deal with them, and try to give them some hope. Hope for a monster… Ironic, hope for one beyond hope.
There were some runes he didn't know or was unsure of what their meaning may be, but what he got was the following. "Then crowned, the Night King. One that is born incapable of dying is born again, as a king of all nights. The shell cracks, and he rises, in the perpetual time, and is elevated to the greatest, to rule as a night crowned king."
Melkor knew many things, yet still he was unsure of what this could mean. There was more unrelated text in that page, something that had a prophetic air, but not quite. He closed the book, and took a look at the title. The Night. Interesting, in his memory there was no book in the possession of the Nighthaunter by that name, then again. He only knew of two. Though whoever this king might be, he should look for it, after all one cannot be unprepared.
A stone chair came flying through the door, breaking it, Melkor ducked back into the coffin as it splintered into a thousand fragments. He came out of the coffin, scared but also curious. How bad must this fit be. He heard a voice, not one he knew, but one speaking in accented High Gothic.
"Calm down, brother." It said, with clear worry.
Brother… Another Primarch, interesting. Melkor peaked at the now non existent door, and he saw the Nighthaunter swing his restrained arm in his direction, he ducked behind the door frame and he saw an Eight Legion terminator hit the wall on the other side of the office he was in.
A Primarch, and most likely the Atramentar. Curze really hit the fan.
He peaked again, and he stayed peeking until some semblance of restraint had been achieved. Thanks to the prey sight on his bionic eye he could see the faint reddish color of the enormous arms holding the Nighthaunter. Yet even as large as he was his presence was minimal, the Nighthaunter enveloped the room like a blanket, of awe and fear. Thankfully he was accustomed to the Nighthaunter´s presence, it hardly threw his mental state off.
He slowly walked into the main hall of the sanctum where Curze was being restrained by what could only be another Primarch and half a dozen of the Terminator elite of the Eight Legion.
His head, though, kept on moving, he shrieked and then he started to scream in Nostraman so fast Melkor didn't grasp their meaning. He slowly got closer, he was afraid of what could happen to him. He had spent too much time in this life now. Before he was a man lost in time, now he was simply an exile from a different time.
"Curze." He shouted, yet his voice could hardly be heard over the shrieks of the eighth son.
He got closer, the red giant who Melkor guessed must be the Crimson King, hardly gave him any attention, too preoccupied on his brother´s attempts to leave his grasp. The Night Lords, knowing who he was, did not oppose him either.
"Calm down Curze. You are a monster now, but as long you live there is always hope for better."
Curze seemed to have heard him as he shrieked, blinked, turned his head towards Melkor and recklessly lunged as if he meant to grab him by the neck. Thankfully this distraction was what the Crimson King needed to strike a blow to his brother. He struck him with such force the Nighthaunter collapsed on the floor, his head at Melkor´s feet unconscious.
Everyone there was stunned. The Crimson King by the fact he had never seen his brother effectively try to kill himself, the Night Lords by the sheer violence of their Lord´s fit and Melkor by the fact he now had an unconscious Primarch lying nearly at his feet.
They all took a deep breath, and then one Night Lord spoke, one Night Lord Melkor knew to be Shang, Konrad´s equerry. He spoke slowly but in his tone there was an anxiousness… After all, what could have driven his lord to a fit like this one. Their only clue, the words Konrad Curze had spoken midway through the fit, and no one liked those words.
"Then crowned in his stead, the Dark King. One that is once born immortal is born again as a king of All Darkness. The black shell cracks, thus he ascends, in the timeless time, and is elevated to the gods, to reign as a dark-crowned king."
The Dark King… That damned prophecy. Melkor knew what it was, he knew it. It was the doom of mankind, the death of hope however slim it might have been in the first place.
If the Curze had foreseen this, it was no wonder he had gone mad, and if had seen it again, with what seemed far more intense than in Nostramo, according to the tale. Then Melkor knew things were about to become very very dire.