"To get something, you have to give something," said Azure, and a second later she pulled a scroll from behind her back. "A spell from the world of cursed mirrors."
But the Blue Scribes were not distracted from their notes. P'tarix muttered something under his breath and actively used his pen to write out one magical symbol after another. It was rumored that the pen had been torn from the wing of the Master of Change himself, which generally seemed to be true due to the eerie aura around what seemed to be such a simple thing.
"Well…" Azure had expected something like this, since it was far from the first time she had tried to get help from the Blue Scribes. "A tablet with spells from the Dark Age of People…"
At that moment, Skirat'p cast one of his glances at the tablet, the black surface of which was still bleeding. However, a second later, his brother made a strange sound and again Skirat'p began to reread the spell that was thundering right now in the battle of the daemons of Tzeentch and Slaanesh. Neither the tablet nor the scroll interested the Blue Scribes, because they already had these records.
However, Azure did not despair and continued to try to interest the two brothers time after time. On the one hand, she needed answers to her questions or at least information about the list of all the participants in that battle. With their help, she could already find out how Tzeentch was overthrown. This could also be the beginning of the creation of an alliance, because a lot of time had passed, and Tzeentch knew how to make enemies better than others. Perhaps many would want to repeat the past success and who knows, perhaps through them it would be possible to reach other Gods...
Lazuri's plans were extremely ambitious, and she herself sometimes did not notice how precise analysis was replaced by naive dreams. Sure, she was a higher demon and all that, but who did she think she was? How did she even think that she could convince the other Gods of anything? They themselves decided when and what to do, they had a much better view of the potential and consequences, and if the opportunity to overthrow Tzeentch existed again, then Slaanesh would have used it already, without any hints, help or advice.
However, in her mad desire for revenge, Azure had long since gone beyond all conceivable and inconceivable limits. Moreover, her very essence was now defined by this very revenge. In turn, for creatures born not of flesh, this played an extremely important role. Demons were born from emotions and feelings, thanks to them they lived, became stronger. In turn, Tzeentch inflicted irreparable wounds on Azure and now only the desire for revenge prevented her from dying.
And ultimately, Azure will die trying to do the impossible. After all, not only everything that was dear to her burned that day. All other destinies burned too, leaving only one linear path to the grave. There could be no other options, but Azure still tried to flutter.
At some point, Azure angrily threw away the last scroll, the contents of which she could not even understand, so powerful was the spell. However, the Blue Scribes already knew it. At that moment, Azure had to give up what she wanted to keep for herself or at least not give into the hands of Tzeentch, who might or might not know about the contents. After all, the Blue Scribes probably duplicated many spells that Tzeentch was able to learn himself and without the help of his assistants during this time.
Without further ado, Azure simply held out an open palm, on which lay a sphere of sixty-six parts, each with a unique symbol. All of them could move, moving in multidimensional spaces and forming strange words. It was some kind of dictionary or something similar. However, the proof of its value was the frozen feather of P'tarix.
"Not so fast," Azure immediately hid the artifact, also moving several parts, turning the surface into unreadable nonsense.
The Blue Scribes already knew what Azure was interested in. As well as the potential consequences of collaborating with her. However, Tzeentch had given them only one task - collecting all the spells. And to fulfill this task, they could even try to rob their own creator, if of course they had enough strength and there were no other places to research.
In addition, the sphere turned out to be extremely complex and carried the essence of primordial magic, extremely dangerous and devastating. Its applications were so rare that many in the mortal world simply did not know about it. And those who did were in an eternal struggle between black and white.
Within moments, the Blue Scribes had written a scroll for Azure and made the exchange. The scroll contained their entire retelling of those events, warped by alien perceptions and largely useless. However, for Azure, it was perhaps her last hope of finding a way to thwart Tzeentch.
And yet, having met her with streams of will, I suddenly felt for a moment an incredible disappointment, which she so wanted to hide and could not do so. Probably, for her, the information received had no value due to its absolute uselessness or, what is more expected, the impossibility of using such information.
"I told you everything I knew about Tzeentch," I reminded him, because we had an agreement.
- Yes, I told you, but I won't repay you in kind. I know much more than you.
"It smells like a scam," I must admit, I expected something like this from the start and therefore wasn't particularly upset.
— The fall from the Endless Mountains and the emergence of magic are the same events. Slaanesh was indeed able to defeat Tzeentch, earning her place in the Four. After that, many more mages began to appear in the mortal worlds, as the process itself is still artificially accelerated by Tzeentch.
- So... there is a possibility that he allowed himself to be destroyed?
- Yes, and in that case... centuries of my search have been pointless. And if not... - Azure sighed heavily. - There is no all-powerful artifact capable of crushing a god. Tzeentch fell only thanks to the power of three other gods, and no one can stand on their level.
- That was to be expected. They are Gods.
"It should have been," the demoness answered regretfully.
- So... what are you going to do now?
— Look for another way to achieve your goal, — Lazur saw her future very clearly and did not doubt her answer for a second. — The storm is ending. The new world order is established. It's funny, Nurgle seems to have become a leader. He never sought to be first, never thirsted for revenge, he probably didn't even want to become a god. But now his power has become greater than other gods, and he... he doesn't even have some kind of galactic plan, he just does his dirty work.
- Yeah, if I hadn't seen his powers destroy cities and turn people into clots of biomass... maybe I would have been moved by him. Although no, even then his despair is repulsive to me, just as a life without hope is not a life.
"I honestly don't care," Lazur shrugged and was about to leave, when she suddenly threw over her shoulder. "You know where my home is, if you learn anything new about Tzeentch, come by. I'll probably have something to give you in return. Oh, and yes, so that there are no hard feelings…"
Azure created a rainbow haze and in a second a creepy looking tome materialized in it and floated in my direction.
"Oh, dangerous knowledge that could drive me crazy?" I suggested.
- Unfortunately, your usefulness is too low for such gifts. You didn't say anything important or that I didn't know. So... this is just a collection of the best batches of regicide. I found it on one of the worlds, studied it completely and... it's long been useless to me.
- Yeah, she dumped some trash on me, got it.
- Think as you like, I don't really care. The main thing is that you heard me. Goodbye.
And flapping her wings, Lazur literally disappeared into the sky, covered with pink and blue streams of energy. I took the folio, opened it and made sure that it really was the simplest collection of games. There were step-by-step analyses, more effective strategies and debuts of the best players of worlds unknown to me. This game was very ancient, because it was actually the same chess, just with some minor nuances.
Then, casting a glance at the border of Slaanesh and Tzeentch's domains, I turned and headed towards the Crystal Labyrinth. I had always known about its location, moreover, it seemed to beckon me, helping to shorten the paths. Tzeentch clearly wanted to see me, as well as many of his other servants, meetings with whom would take place simultaneously.
My path passed without any particular problems. A couple of times I saw entire armies, which were already led by Lords of Change, higher daemons, organized by the calmed Tzeentch. After such a shameful failure, everyone will have to work hard to at least partially regain the lost positions.
Positions were not meant to refer to any specific territories, but rather to the power of energy flows, in particular the number of souls under control. Slaanesh, in turn, not only bit off a significant chunk of the chaotic Immaterium, but also captured the souls of Tzeentch's loyal generals, who were caught unawares by their master's madness.
They did not have time to prepare and found themselves in a trap, after which they became prey. And for the Gods, the higher demons are, without exaggeration, a strategically important resource, in some sense an irreparable loss. After all, the return of such a frame could sometimes take thousands or even tens of thousands of years, and extremely difficult conditions had to be met.
So Slaanesh celebrated her victory today, as in the garden of Nurgle, a feast of incredible proportions was held. Except that Khorne, as usual, began in good health and ended in disgrace, unable to hold on to the captured territories. However, Khorne probably did not care about this, the size of his domains rarely worried the God of Skulls and Blood, because when war came, the enemy's territories instantly became his temple. War always came and the sounds of battle never left the galaxy.
"And here is the labyrinth," I said, emerging at the boundary of Tzeentch's abode. "And the walls have simply disappeared, anyone can enter."
"Go in, but don't go out," Birdie added, looking intently into the distorting essence of change. "I have a bad presence."
— We don't have a choice anyway.
- He will punish us for communicating with Lazur.
"I'm sure he himself planned our meeting.
And having taken a step into the labyrinth, I headed straight to its heart. All conceivable and inconceivable obstacles that other travelers had encountered immediately melted before me. Tzeentch himself seemed to be saying:
- I'm waiting for you.
The anticipation of the meeting was making me a little nervous. I started to shake slightly, the excitement taking over other emotions. Tzeentch was shaken quite a bit because of his paranoia. What has he become now? Perhaps the attack has passed, but the suspiciousness has increased many times over. In that case, due to his potential madness, anything can await me, including true death, before which I will be put through incredible tortures, driving me mad.
And as I stepped into the center, my worst suspicions began to be confirmed. Tzeentch had become a hideous, shapeless mass that changed uncontrollably and constantly. Thousands of faces appeared and disappeared from his flesh, eyes watching my every move as emerging maws spewed accusations and grievances. Bitterness hung in the air.
A little further away, in a dark corner that I had not been allowed to see before, lay a two-headed demon. This was Kairos, whom Tzeentch had forced to look into the Well of Eternity. From that moment on, one head of Kairos saw only the past, and the other only the future. Kairos himself was always close to Tzeentch, and recounted everything he had seen. However, even he sometimes made mistakes, for the past was rarely as it was seen. And the future was constantly changing.
And Kairos lay broken in the corner, feathers falling from him and he barely understood what was happening. All because he could only see the future and the past, but not the present. This made him extremely weak, and Tzeentch's behavior - terrible. Once again, in a fit of madness, he did what the Chaos Gods and their minions did quite often. The Immaterium knew no measure.
But the worst thing was that Tzeentch wanted me to see it. To see that he was capable of crushing and destroying anyone, even the most important servant to him. And I, in my foolishness, decided to smile, in order to smooth out the degree of intensity a little.
"So you're back. Not in much of a hurry, huh?" The accusation hit me in the face like a whip and I staggered, clutching my face.
A huge gaping wound exposed my skull and turned my smile into a terrible grin. There was almost no blood, but my soul was cracking at the seams. However, not even two moments had passed before the second blow landed on my back. One after another, an invisible magical whip caused me real pain that could not be compared with physical damage. And through the wounds, my memory flowed out, the worst moments of my life, deliberately hidden by the brain, but not leaving me.
"Where are you going?!" Tzeentch roared in rage when he suddenly saw strange shadows in the path of the whip.
I did not know whether they had deliberately stood in the way of the blow or whether the magical chaos had simply exposed my soul and released them into reality. But they too had fallen under the hot hand of the mad god. The weakest particle had immediately fallen and shattered into a thousand fragments that could no longer be collected. The echo of Lex fluttered in despair, but the worst of all was Mordred, who had become a part of me against his will, but Tzeentch saw only betrayal in such a thing, and his whip struck magical sparks even from the incredibly strong crystal from which the labyrinth was created.
The senseless cruelty was the most frightening, but these changes were not the rarest, on the contrary, they were often what the mortal worlds experienced. How many mad dictators and generals had done something similar in the history of Terra? Sending millions of soldiers to be slaughtered? And then ordering their own lands to be burned to the ground to delay the enemy? Forming squads of children and plunging deeper into their own imaginary world, where He, the Dictator, was above God and was sent to rule the world...
All of this was also embodied in Tzeentch to some extent, though the other chaos gods were also prone to psychosis. And so it was extremely dangerous to deal with them. They could become completely unpredictable at any moment. And any person who suddenly thought that they could control chaos… was doomed to the same fate that I experienced.
"Traitor," Tzeentch hissed angrily, seeming to calm down a bit, but still not admitting his mistake, which is logical: he is God, he is always right, even when he does sheer madness, because it is his power that determines the starting point and all the boundaries of the norm. "Bend your knees."
My soul was a pile of torn pieces. One by one, sharpened memories appeared before my eyes. Tzeentch tried to make me feel guilty, so that I would believe in madness and admit that I was wrong. I began to cry and beg for forgiveness for daring to speak with Azure. For corrupting and stealing Mordred's soul. For not understanding it... I had to apologize for everything at once, but... the blows were too strong, because of which I began to spit on everything.
I just stood there, because I understood that any action could cause anger, and therefore the best option was to show inaction. But at that moment Tzeentch became angry again, because there were no right actions. Any action I took was wrong from the start and probably should have waited a little longer, and not rushed into the labyrinth immediately after the paranoia attack ended.
My knees broke with a crash and I fell to the ground like a sack, unable to resist Tzeentch.
"I did everything as you wanted," I said quietly, breaking up into blue and pink swirls.
- YOU DID NOTHING!!! YOUR INFORMATION DID NOT GIVE ANY ANSWERS!!!
- But is it my fault? I was just following your orders.
- DO NOT DARE ARGUE WITH ME, WORM!!! - Tzeentch roared, not wanting to admit his own calculations, and began to shake.
With my question I pointed out to him that it was all his fault. And he knew it, which was why he was going mad. He had miscalculated, he had made a mistake, and because of his miscalculation, a mistake had crept into the thousand-year plans. Everything had to be redone, and an endless amount of work had turned to dust... it would be an incredibly long time before humility would calm Tzeentch, fortunately time passed differently in the warp.
"You vile coward," Tzeentch hissed, lifting me by the neck with his tentacle.
"With your tyranny you dig your own grave," I replied, looking away from his faces, because I lacked the will to fight even one of his faces. "You understand this, but instead of taking any action, you continue to make things worse. One day you will be thrown off the Endless Mountains again and you will know true despair, which will try to serve through a multi-move.
And at that moment Tzeentch reached zero point. Other servants tried to reason with him, some of whom I happened to speak to in unison. But it was on the most vile that Tzeentch decided to take his revenge in full.
In an instant, his will fell upon me. My soul blazed in a painful rainbow fire. The Crystal Cup he had given me melted, dripping directly onto my soul. My muscles seized up and gripped Lazuri's gift tightly, while thousands of tentacles slowly devoured my arms.
I wanted to scream, but I couldn't. I wanted to die, but then the punishment would not be complete. At some point, I began to beg for death and said everything Tzeentch wanted to hear. But no words could stop Tzeentch's plan, who silently watched my suffering, no longer feeling any emotion. And at the end of the seemingly endless torture, he said:
- No, worm, it is not I who will know true despair, but you.
And at that very moment I was thrown into the next rebirth, in the darkness of which an abyss of despair awaited me, because in the distant future there was nothing left but pain and suffering.
Your study was immersed in semi-darkness. The dim light of the lamps barely illuminated the old and rather shabby furniture, the giant bookcases with sealed folios were covered in dust, and you yourself again fell asleep right at your desk.
"What year is it now?" you suddenly started, trying to scream, but old age took over and you only managed to wheeze.
You had not remembered your own age for a very long time and only had a rough idea of how old you were. We were talking about tens of centuries during which you tirelessly served the Imperium. The abundance of augmetics that gradually replaced your body spoke of your great sacrifices. After all, rejuvenation procedures have already become ineffective at such a lifespan.
- Ah yes... times of great change... Roboute Guilliman was brought back to life... indeed, indeed... - restoring the time-worn memory, containing an incredible amount of information, you gradually came to your senses. - And a problem that only I and my colleagues can solve... indeed, indeed... so where was I?
The Imperium had existed for over ten thousand years. A vast period of time during which it had been on the brink of destruction more than once. In all this madness, it was difficult to preserve grains of truth, for history had been rewritten many times. What's more, even the calendar in the Imperium differed from world to world, which made it so fragmented and weak. Divide and conquer - this principle was known to the Archenemy far better than anyone else.
You remembered that day, the day Roboute Guilliman died and was resurrected. It was death, but by some unimaginable force, his soul was torn from the clutches of corrupted daemons. On that day, when the Imperium was already on its knees and even Cadia was destroyed, you suddenly saw hope. The Archenemy was furious, but there was no stopping the Primarch's return, and soon all of Mankind would see hope.
For Roboute Guilliman marched forth and carried out his Father's will, sending countless armadas of ships to restore order to the Imperium. The Furious Crusade would soon begin... or had it already? You hadn't been paying close attention to your watch, and you still hadn't quite collected your thoughts.
However, this did not stop you from coping with the task set before you. Set personally by Roboute Guilliman, who was horrified by the deplorable state of the Imperial archives. You reconstructed history, sorted out dates and tried to restore the course of the confused history with your own efforts. It was difficult to do, because the dates of the same events never matched, and each historical figure had hundreds of facets and was described from the side of both loyalists and probable traitors, potential heretics, and just fools.
It was almost impossible to dig up the truth in all of this, but you tirelessly transferred entire ancient tomes to the cogitators and personally structured all the knowledge, spending weeks… months… years… decades… centuries… eternity… on this matter.
And now you were about to forget yourself in the flow of history, when the personal cogitator, covered with dense layers, made a sound. At first you did not understand what it was, but the cogitator beeped again. The last time a message came to it was more than a century ago.
"Well, well…" you said, then shook off the dust and looked at the screen.
The information surprised you, but your brain started working feverishly and everything began to fall into place.
Another radical Inquisitor, who was condemned by the Imperium and declared a traitor for creating a daemonhost. You had worked with him several times and knew that he was the Emperor's most vicious dog. In addition, despite his apparent fall to the power of the Archenemy, he still defended the interests of the Imperium, albeit acting separately. Although there were rumors that some Inquisitors still helped him, in particular his apprentice.
Either way, there must have been some mistakes in the conspiracy and cryptography, since he was able to reach you so easily. In addition, he had access to the Inquisition's codes and ciphers, which also indicated the existence of his assistants within the system. This will all have to be sorted out, but later...
Studying the messages, you were surprised to discover many facts that seemed incredible. However, given your knowledge and the specifics of your work... you expected something like this. You had been expecting it for a long time and even had a protocol for such actions. This message became a call to action.
Inquisitor Gregor uncovered some very dangerous facts on Draekernor, which he shared with you and many other Inquisitors. For a long time, the Inquisition worked with these clues, trying to get to the truth, but the Archenemy was always ahead of us. However, once the Emperor's loyal watchdogs have sniffed out their prey, they will pursue it for the rest of their days.
And soon something was about to happen that would determine the fate of the Imperium. Inquisitor Gregor himself did not have the power or influence to deal with it alone, and so in his next call he asked other ordos to pay attention to the problem. No one answered him, but the Ordo Maleus had already begun to develop countermeasures. The message went unanswered, but was assessed as extremely important.
You saw something of your own in this message. The Ordo Maleus will handle the rough work and destroy the daemonic threat, but there is work for other ordos. Inquisitor Gregor understood this and therefore provided information for you. A list of names of those who knew a lot and could be both dangerous and useful. Meeting these people or perhaps xenos could potentially speed up your work and help the Imperium restore its history.
Anyway, before the message self-destructed and only zeros remained from the code, you managed to make a copy of the lists where the names of those who found the opportunity to save a piece of truth for posterity in the darkness of the distant and dark future were recorded. You made several backup copies so as not to lose a single name and immediately brought them up on an additional screen that was larger and could accommodate them all at once.
And let all the glory go to the Space Marines, let the songs praise the Guard's exploits, that is truly important. But for you, history was much more important. After all, without its history and its Truth, the Imperium was just a colossus with feet of clay. And the faster Humanity forgot its past, the closer the collapse of their entire species became. You were fighting this enemy, having already begun writing messages for your agents to contact the people on the mysterious list.
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