Fate… Such a cruel thing. Some say there is no more cruel mistress than fate… For everyone dances at its whims, knowingly or unknowingly. It is a mistress that weaves uncountable branches, from the most likely, to something no one would think in their wildest dreams. To the tune it weaves all dance. From the mightiest gods who seek its favor for their eternal rule to the lowliest squirrel who simply craves nuts to survive winter. It is a capricious mistress yet all dance at its tune, all seek its favor. Yet as many strands separate and reach out into eternity, just as many converge after infinity into singular points, like pillars to keep reality and unreality in a single piece.
Mortals love to dance to its tune, blaming her for their misfortune before she has even decided which strand, which note to play in its endless tune. She is a cruel mistress prone to twists and turns that no one would see. A great man killed by a misstep in his morning walk, while a great tyrant manages to survive both plague disease and live till elderly while at the same time dodging man's own attempts at its demise. She is a cruel mistress indeed.
Cruel controller of many, yet she loves only those unbound by her. Seldom are those in reality and unreality. Some deem themselves untouched by her, yet spend ages trying to glean the most likely strands to occur, how to traverse them to their benefit. She likes those. Bold liars to themselves.
Others however are truly free. Most recently twenty have risen with the ability to defy her, to challenge her. Oh how she loves those. Born of the one who challenges her the most. A man who is fated to become a god. Yet this one, that one, was too enamored by her sister's power. Someone even crueler than her. One that the more tightly it was grasped the more it vanished. Like sand clutched in a man's palm.
Fate was a mistress, bound and unbound. Cruel and benevolent. It was nothing and everything, and those who heard its whisper or beheld its strands either went mad in their quest to see all notes in its unending song, or great fortune would come. It existed and it did not. It was fate, and all depend on it to live.
Yet someone laughed now. A jest, played that would enamour every audience. Even the unborn godling. Oh… What a jest he had made.
It was a maddened laughter. He played architect and thrusting one, bloodseeker and plaguemaster. He danced around them, saving himself and now an opportunity arose. The sea is no true sea. The ocean is no true ocean. It is bound and unbound, it is where every strand of fate is woven and its threads broken. It is a reflection, a broken mirror of reality´s state. Yet one bound as much by reality as belief, and belief beggars memory. Oh what a priceless jest had come.
Like a trump card drawn from under ruin´s own face. A tool that would create the mightiest jest. A mortal bound by fate, but shaping it without seeking to know its every thread. It was ironic as it was entertaining. He should invite him to his shows. After all in that sea if what was will always be, then the simple memory of something even if dead for millenia in reality makes it that it never went away.
A jest and a half, to see a mountain rise again. A mortal's memory reviving something long dead. What a jet that would be to see its punchline complete.
"Are you sure, Melkor?" The Sin eater asked. Trez was infinitely loyal to his lord. To Nostramo´s Dark King, but what Melkor, the only mortal save him, no, the only mortal that seemingly always had the Nigthhaunter´s ear, asked was bordering on treason. He was being asked to collude with a man under investigation by the authority of a Primarch, not his Primarch, not his lord, but still a son of the Emperor and he was being asked to collude.
"Look Trez. If I am to die someone-"
"Lord Magnus wouldn't kill you," the crooked nostraman psycher says, interrupting the other.
"You don't know that."
"He won't kill you unless Dominus Nox allows it. Unless you have sinned, Melkor."
Melkor´s face twitches, an indication of pain, of emotion seeping into his mouth yet remaining there.
"Many things I know would make me a dead man if He finds out." he eventually says slowly. "I have faith in Curze."
"Dominus Nox-" he cuts him out, but Melkor ignores
"I have to have faith he will do the right thing when he learns about it, and if I am not there to say it to him someone else must. Someone he trusts."
Both mortals froze mid-sentence. The air thinned, charged with an invisible hum that seemed to resonate in their bones. Melkor's eyes darted to the far wall, as if expecting it to move or shatter, while Trez's breath turned ragged, as though the very space around him tightened.
"Learns about what?" A voice booms in their minds, like thunder in a storm, strong powerful , unmistakable voice.
"Magnus." Melkor whispers. Time had run out for him. Now was his time to die. There was no way he wouldn't have his mind torn open, its contents forcefully stolen by the Master of Prospero.
When his mind returned to reality he was alone in his luxurious cell. Trez had left it as his thoughts whirled.
The walls seemed to shrink around him, closing in, holding truly like a prisoner. Melkor could feel his body shrink, his heart beat faster as it tried to find a way to free itself from this warped touched cell.
Magnus walked in, a giant of brass, clad in the horned raiment. He was a loreseeker, a Primarch devoted to possessing knowledge beyond any. He was the Emperor´s curiosity untempered by his caution, untempered by wisdom obtained through the ages. Melkor could swear his eye had changed color since he last saw him.
Melkor was seated on his bed, laying against the warping metallic walls. His lower body tucked in the bed sheets as if he was guarding against an imaginary coldness. The Crimson King did not even bother to greet him.
Melkor breathed deeply and met the Primarch´s gaze. If he was about to die then he would die proudly as any man, yet he wasn't naive enough to think he was brave. He was a cornered rat. Pitifully weak compared to Magnus.
Magnus finally took a good look at him. "Where are you from?" He asked. It was more than clear Melkor was not Nostraman, with his regular skin tone, his eyes of emerald with a tinge of amber or hazel. Alone this made it more than clear he was not of Nostramo.
"Terra." Melkor answered, his heart skipped a beat and pain filled it. Pain born of memory. He hadn't thought of his home for a very long time. He had stopped thinking of it. It was painful to remind himself how much the birthworld of humanity had changed, changed for the worst.
Magnus´ face betrayed nothing. Whatever coursed through the Primarch´s mind Melkor, even having served the tormented Nighthaunter could not see anything. No slight twitch of his face, impossible to see to him, but perceptible by how the face slightly moved for but a second.
"Where on Terra?" He continued with his interrogation. The walls naturally warping, the floor slightly raised as if there was an unseen force pushing it up. The pressure in the air was palpable even to Melkor. Someone who strangely had been oblivious to the minor effects of the warp around him. Oblivious of their happenings, but not unaware of the warp´s power.
"Ib-Saragorn Enclaves." Melkor said. He almost betrayed the other name… No there was no point deluding himself the Primarch would have noticed. He did notice.
"What was the word you were going to say?" Magnus's eye narrowed, a pulse of energy radiating through the room. The metal floor groaned as if it, too, awaited an answer.
Melkor's fingers dug into the edge of the bed, knuckles turning white as he fought the urge to answer. His mind raced, each heartbeat an echo in his ears. His hazel eyes locked Magnus´s own in clear defiance.
"Next question." The mortal said to him in his own pitiful defiance. He would not answer Magnus´ question.
The Primarch raised his hand, the air seemed to shift in the room. Melkor was pushed against the wall as an unseen force crashed against his body. He was pinned in place. In his mind he heard repeating. "Answer."
"No," he said, his muscles in pain as they moved to utter that most simple of words.
Even with the force pinning him in place he could see Magnus. He was like a man looking down on a worm, impossibly proud, impossibly arrogant, absolutely sure of his own mastery. He was a Primarch, he was many times greater than any mortal, such arrogance and pride in himself, in his own ability was understandable to a point.
There was emotion in Melkor´s eyes, hate perhaps. Defiance, surely. Pity even. He was running out of patience. If he wasn't seemingly so valued by his brother he would have already finished this. He wouldn't have been so patient.
He wouldn't bother with this. He would take the information he had come for and deal with Curze after. There was no point in being patient with someone who clearly would not cooperate.
In a single forgotten gesture, the Primarch´s hand moved. The barred doors of the mortal´s mind snapped open. The walls guarding it were easily cast aside as the Primarch delved into his mind.
The first threads of memory were a chaotic torrent, far more than he anticipated. Whispers of battles unfought, faces and words familiar and strange, images that seemed to pulse with an unclear rhythm.
Then it all settled, as if a storm had suddenly vanished and he was on a hill, to his side tall golden grass. In the distance he saw the clear blue sea and around the hill he saw buildings. Their detail far lesser than he would have expected. He was inside a mortal's mind, his knowledge and images dependent on his lesser eyesight.
"Welcome, Master of Prospero," Melkor said, the tone dipped with an unexpected calm. "To Terra as it once was." In his hand seemed to be a small device, like a dataslate but smaller. He was clothed in comforting clothes, some pants and a shirt with long sleeves and a hood he wasn't using.
The memory seemed to vanish and return for a blink of a second, like the flicker of a candle flame. Magnus had projected himself into his mind, his desire to reap this mortal´s knowledge seemingly stalled by the mind´s stubborn desire to show only what he wanted to show.
"This is not Terra," Magnus said, and the scene shifted seamlessly around him. He had ceased exerting pressure on the mortal's mind, choosing instead to watch, to learn. The room that materialized was modest, almost suffocating, its ceiling brushing the crest of his helm. A bed, narrow and plain, a work table, a chair, and a bookcase cluttered with titles on forgotten sciences filled the space. Two large sheets adorned the walls: one a map teeming with oceans and vibrant landmasses, the other a diagram of flying machines with cryptic labels.
Melkor stood on the bed, reaching only to Magnus's chest. He didn't meet the Primarch's eyes, but a faint smile tugged at his lips as he spoke. "You're right. This is not Terra. This is Terra as it once was, after mankind reached the stars but before it claimed them."
Magnus's gaze roved over the map, lingering on the blue of the seas that no longer shimmered on the Terra he knew.
"Make your questions Magnus. I will not answer all of them, but make them still."
Around them whispers could be heard, voices Magnus did not know permeating the room.
"You were the chosen one." He hears.
The scene flickers, almost like a wall of paper being torn and replaced in an infinitesimally small second.
"How did you come to the Nightfall?" The Crimson King asks. He knows him to be human, a paradoxical human. Yet his mind seems as malleable as a mortal's mind. If he wished he could have destroyed it with a simple thought. He does not. He also knows the mortal seems to know alot about the Primarchs. He will ask that next.
Melkor shrugs. They return to the golden hill. "I dont know." His words seem sincere, and there is no intent of deception in the air, Magnus feels that. "I went to sleep one night, and I woke up upon that vessel."
If that is true, it is surprising. If that is true, he seems to simply be a knowledgeable man lost in time, but that does not explain why he came out alive.
"Why did my brother not kill you?" Melkor smiled.
"Tell me Magnus. Do you know your brother?" His face shone brightly with a mischievous smile, as if he commanded the conversation. He did not. He probably knew that, but still there was that smile.
"You dare lecture me, a son of the Emperor?" Magnus shouted in outrage. He would end this. He was tired of the mortal´s sense of superiority. He would just take what he came for, it wouldn't be hard, just a little push.
Psychic power swelled and the scene twisted, broken. The sea in the distance breaking like shattered glass, but it did not change. It remained like shattered glass. The floor remained as shattered glass, and Melkor alone remained with some semblance of being trying to keep his mindscape together. His fists clenched, his face in a rictus of pain and effort. His eyes darkening, the green-hazel slowly giving way to eyes not unlike that of Konrad Curze.
"This is my mind." He said, and the words reverberated. Two voices speaking in conjunction, one mortal, one he had heard before. Another, another that was like a darkening endless tone, ancient beyond measure. It held no power, compared to Magnus, but the sheer fact that it held the mortal as one for another second was noteworthy. It was curious, it seemed dangerous.
Magnus continued to apply pressure. The scenery, the hill, the sea, the golden grass shattering, slowly giving way, like a glued piece being torn apart by two beings pushing, each to their side. Glass cracked, the space around them shimmered with intent, prideful defiance, worried defiance.
Eventually Melkor´s eyes disappeared, dark as the King of Terrors, his face becoming paler as he strained with pain. Magnus could see, with his single eye, he was beyond what he should have held. The dark shadow that he had seen covering his soul seemingly provided meager aid against the Master of Prospero.
Once it shattered. Once Melkor´s strength failed and the meager power supplied by the darkness that had covered his soul was expended. Shards of glass flew around them, like the fragile unreality of a mortal's mind. Images, thoughts, words and intent reflected in each shard.
"I thought I could beat most of my brothers. Maybe not Sanguinius. He is a baresark in angel's garb. Or the Night Haunter, for he has the power of the insane." He sees engraved in crimson blood in a pitifully small shard.
"Why do I still live? What more do you want from me?" Was engraved in another, carved by the ashes of misery and untold pain.
"Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends." Carved in stone slabs of certainty.
He looked at another, he felt rage, another he felt shame seeping from the shard. Another he felt pride, another he saw new words. These seemingly carved through the mortal´s rough understanding of psychically charged terms.
"What do Humans know of our pain? We have sung songs of lament since before your ancestors crawled on their bellies from the sea." Engraved in watery tears.
Half a dozen came to him in a single motion, spinning in the immaterial air. For a flicker they all, even in widely different positions, made a single joint image. An image he did not see for long, an image he just saw in the depths of an underground hall. A nethermost hall echoing with the glistening crimson of molten flame, barely illuminating it. In that split microsecond in that mind he saw that and nothing more. An image with the psychic resonance not belonging to the mortal.
The fragments spinning continuously into reflections of other things, images bound within eternity. Words and intent spun and flew in the mind´s world.
Dark Shard engraved with words flew around the Crimson King, their mere sight slowly making the Cyclops lose his psychic footing almost as if they by themselves possessed power. He saw the words, he saw the letters inscribed in the darkest shard of them all, humming silently with the same resonating tone of that earlier dark shadow.
He saw the letters, but when he was thrown out of the mortal´s mind. He remembered none of them, his mind only capable of recollecting part of what happened before the dark glass came into view. Truthfully he only remembered their burning sensation, their strength, their unbendable intent. Yet what he remembered was dreadfully curious.
He tried to remember what it had been about. What he thought he had missed, but he couldn't. All parts seemed to be plugged, so that whatever mystery he might have felt that had escaped him was nought but a burning sensation in the back of his mind. Yet whatever those Dark Shards of Glass, dark fragments clearly belong to something else than the mortal. Whatever it was, whatever he was missing it didn't even seem important though it clearly was.
Perhaps it was something that could have changed fate itself, but Magnus was too sure, too proud. The Crimson King to certain of his psychic mastery. Incapable to admit that somethings are beyond him, and Melkor while certainly not beyond him seemed to have fate at his side. Those Shards, he would find their truth soon enough.
If that is so, or not, few know. If the laughter of a hidden god can be heard reverberating through infinite halls and labyrinthine passageways unknown to all save his masquerade of dancing servants and doomed people, few know. If it is the architect´s paradoxical decree, to preserve this mortal´s knowledge away from the Crimson King´s eye. Only he would know.
The mortal´s body laid unmoving on the bed, his body limp, unmoving, as if he was dead. Magnus doubted he had indeed died. His mind might be broken, like the shattered glass he had seen earlier, though he doubted it. He hadn't put enough pressure for that.
He was going to delve inside again, to find out what that darkness was in truth. What those Dark Crystals were showing. He tried to remember the image, he could not, and that infuriated him. It was as if an entity more powerful than him. More powerful than Magnus the Red, son of the Emperor, the most psychically gifted Primarch was shielding him. It was outrageous. If that was the case he would have noticed, nothing that powerful remains unnoticed in the warp.
Before he could delve once more into the mortal´s mind. The mortal who was not moving at all. Something, no someone, hit him. The blow square in the Thousand Sons Primarch´s face. Someone who he did not notice, someone he should have noticed.
He was thrown against the metallic wall, the wall already warping due to the aetheric energies circling in the room, buckled with a metallic thundercrack. It was a sudden blow, an unseen blow. Magnus righted himself, very quickly, yet it was hardly that put the Master of Prospero in danger.
He turned to the direction the blow had come, as he turned a pair of hands grabbed him by the neck and choked him even. He might be taller than his assailant but that seemed to not matter, his panoply of war might hold two giant outgoing tusks, but that did not matter. For he stared at the enraged face of his brother Konrad Curze.
"I asked you to save that mortal not a day ago, a mortal that serves me alone. Who belongs to me, who is precious to me, and you dare think he did anything to me that I did not allow in the first place?! You dare delve into another´s mind in my own vessel!" There might be only the Nostraman hiss in his brother´s voice, but his face made it more than amply clear he was enraged beyond measure.
His brother's hands tightened around his neck. His face was fierce, his dark eyes clear with purpose, his efforts propelled by righteous indignation.
Magnus did not care. He struck the Nighthaunter´s arms with his armored gauntlets, freeing himself. Curze did not reply to the blow, he stared at his brother, a dark void slowly enveloping both brothers. His rage had been made clear. The Lord of Prospero did not care at all about the mortal, nor did he desire to escalate the situation.
Neither moved. Both stunned in a deadlock, the field was Curze´s, the void was Curze´s. The power of Magnus´, the strength was Magnus´.
"I will not fight you." Magnus said, a few seconds after cutting the silence between both. "I acted as I saw fit, to safeguard you." He continued. His words leveled and calm. Seemingly unbothered by the fact that his brother had just tried to choke the life out of him. Perhaps if he had come armored and not with his feathered cloak he might have succeeded.
Curze eyed him. Judged his words, calmly. Without the expected snarl or animalistic hiss Magnus had expected.
"Get Melkor back up, leave and never speak of what happened here, not even to our father."
Magnus´s face turned. He would say these words to father. To speak of his findings.
"If father…"
"Not even to the Emperor." Curze´s mind was unchangeable when he wished it so. That was something Magnus knew first hand. It was not the first time he had seen his brother with a mind hellbent on something. The lightning tower was as good a memory as any for this.
"Fine." Magnus finally said, agreeing to his brother´s terms. There was no point fighting him. If they fought no matter who came out on top, their legions would go blow for blow, following their fathers, and there was no point in such an affair.
The void disappeared around them, and they returned to the room. The warp slowly calmed around them, leaving only the mark on the wall as the testament of what happened there.
With an air of regality that contrasted with his brother´s current temper the Sorcerer King left Curze. Teleporting to his flagship, the Photep. He picked quill and parchment to write what he had learned from mortal's mind. He started to write, the quill effortlessly sliding down the page, still even after filing the first side of the parchment with his notes. He felt something was missing. But that is impossible, a Primarch´s memory is eternal. He remembered his youth on Prospero, learning the psychic arts, the conversations with his father, just as well as last week´s supper. Surely he was not missing anything at all.
Nostramo´s Dark King turned to the mortal, he seemed dead. He spoke some words in Nostraman. Words spoken as a whisper silent in all but thought.
The mortal gasped as if it was the first time in ages air had filled his lungs.
"Fucking Magnus." Was the very first thing he intoned, before noticing Curze. Even after going through something that should have broken any mortal, going through something that should have killed him. It seemed curses were the first thing that came to his mind.
Melkor did not speak, he remained in the bed. Curze stared down at him, like a giant eyeing a child, and he stared up at the Nighthaunter in what seemed frozen awe.
The cell was closed only to the two, amidst disorganized and psychically broken furniture.
For a moment Melkor seemed to forget what just had happened. Curze seemingly occupying his mind. He did not have this reaction to Magnus. He had been with Fulgrim before, and he had an awfully strong aura in relation to his brothers. Magnus´ seemed restrained compared to the Phoenican, well it was most likely indeed restrained.
Curze´s was unrestrained, and Melkor could only speak a single word as he stared at the blank inky nostraman eyes that contrasted with the now unblemished pale snow white tone of his skin.
He tried to speak it, but it got caught in his throat. Seemingly unwilling to leave his mouth.
This was the first time Melkor did not see the monstrous Curze. For he had always been a monster, this Curze was different. He… He didn't have words to describe him.
His mind churned, but eventually something came out of it, in a gargling sentence. "Your aura," he barely said. Something happened and he seemed to finally breathe, the awe inspiring wave of fear and adoration that had washed over him disappeared.
He breathed again, this time far more deeply than in the previous moments, and finally focused on Curze. He struggled to find the right words. Fortunately he didn't need to. Curze spoke first.
"When we first talked," the Primarch almost seemed relaxed. No hiss, no snarl, just simple. nostraman words. "You told me, you did not condemn me for the things I would do. For the destruction of my legion. For the destruction of billions of lives."
"I did." Melkor confirmed, unsure where this was going. Unsure why the Nighthaunter seemed to be confiding in him.
"What about the things that I have already done?"
Melkor blinked, processing the question as if it were a weight he hadn't anticipated. For a moment, the room seemed still, the silence hanging thick. Then he laughed. A laughter of disbelief. Had he truly managed to change fate? He'd never dared to hope for such a thing.
With a slow, deliberate movement, Melkor got up from the bed. His body wavered for an instant, unsure whether he had the strength, but then his right hand steadied him, reaching the metallic wall for support. He had defied a Primarch. He did not know how well, how he had survived. Most likely his secrets were secrets no longer. Most likely the Emperor would know about everything soon enough, but then. Now that did not matter.
He steadied his gaze.
"If you're thinking about that, then you already know the answer don't you?"