1 Prologue
Prologue: Monsters in the dark
=ATBS=
"Ah, you're awake. Good, good. Just in time." A voice, swinging from a mouth-watering contralto to a pleasant bass whispered in my ear. It sent shivers of pleasure and revulsion down my spine, yet it froze the blood in my veins.
"He's just a little terrified human." A deep, chilling voice rumbled from all around me. It felt like bloodthirst, rage and war. It made my blood race like a battle-hymn. My heart thundered with the need to rip and tear, to bathe myself in the blood of my enemies.
I opened my eyes and immediately wanted to claw them out of my skull, yet I was unable to move, to look away.
The landscape… it was hard, no impossible to describe.
There were fleshly, half-rotted mouths on the floor/ceiling. Men, women and children, who were little more than slabs of brutalized flesh and offal were being tortured in unspeakable ways. Their screams of agony/ecstasy were echoing in the purple, pulsating void all around us. Directions were shifting in a way that simply made no sense, up and right left and down, !@#%!*HRF!@$%!...
"What did you do, bird brain?" Another male spoke. The voice sounded like decay, like the moans of the deathly sick.
"This wasn't according to plan." Another voice. Inhuman. Wise. Amused. Interested. It constantly changed in tone and timbre, it held the promise of things to come.
"You think?" This was different. The voice made my very soul ring with confidence I've never known. It held calm radiance, filling my heart with hope.
"How amusing, a shard of the Corpse Emperor..." The Male/Female thing laughed from behind me, the very substance of the sound making me flush with desire.
"He's one of mine." The bright voice spoke, disregarding the interruption.
"Yours? No." A flutter of feathers. Many birdlike eyes formed in the twisting madness around me and staring into my soul.
"Then he isn't one of yours either." The light sounded amused.
"Not yet." The voice was all feminine, soothing, seductive, arousing. It's sheer presence made me scream as my mind was bombarded with visions of carnal pleasures that no sane man would ever dream of in his deepest nightmares.
"Don't break it yet." The constantly changing voice admonished, while the thousand eyes continued to stare into me.
"Wrong! This' exactly by da plan!" A large, very green face suddenly appeared in front of me and grinned.
Those were some huge and reeealy sharp teeth.
"That just what yer get!" The green being winked at me.
"You." The flutter of feathers was getting irritated, though even more interested.
"We is bord!" Another even more green face simply materialized next to the first. "Teh thousand yers da same staf!" It grumbled.
The twisting madness around the faces started turning green.
"You want ChANgE…" The ever changing voice had a distinct tone this time. It was amused. Satisfied. Curious.
"Fun! We wana FUN!" The two green monstrosities roared as one. "Da thirteenth was borin!"
Something muttered a cur!#@$%!@#(!@#… that made my mind hurt.
"We wanna new game!" The faces chanted again and again.
"What do you expect just an ordinary man from wherever you got him to do?" The only voice I could relate to spoke in a long suffered tone.
"Dat… Unexpected..."
"His flesh is weak. His will is brittle." I could hear the echo of a battle in the voice.
"I can fix that..." The sound of tongue wetting lips followed the seductive whisepr. The promise of… I shuddered in more pleasure than a human should be able to ever feel.
"He's still a human. And… alive..." There was a wonder as warm light brushed over me.
The thousand eye starring at me crinkled, smiling.
"Yess..." The voice was all sex and lust..." Amusement rolled from her/him/it. "What say you, little morsel? Ready to play?"
"Don't answer!" The light became harsh, searing the 'yes' off my tongue.
"Games afoot." The first green face beamed at me. "WAAAAGH!" His joyful scream washed over me.
Reality itself shifted, snapping into focus. My mind suddenly cleared, allowing me to comprehend where exactly I was. If my body wasn't frozen I would have voided my bowels then and there, before screaming like a little girl and fainting.
None of that was allowed.
"We have a proposition for you..." The sensual voice slid over my body like a lover's caress, making me shudder in delight.
"Choose a boon and be on its way..." That was more akin to the roar of chainsaws than a voice.
=ATBS=
I awoke with a startled gasp and looked around. Small, stuffy room; pitch dark. I could hear the soft whine of a servo-skull. It felt familiar, reassuring. Letting a sigh of relief, I closed my eyes and fell back into the bed.
It was that dream again, though there were a few more details this time. I shuddered as a vivid recollection ran through my mind. Even whispering a word about what I often dream of would be enough to see me summarily executed if I was lucky. I should know; I've been training to be an inquisitor for what felt forever.
That was mostly true too. My first memories were awakening in a tiny, empty cell in what I later found out to be one of the Holy Black Ships. Let me tell you, the journey to the Most Holy Terra was rather unpleasant, especially when I simply couldn't remember who I was or how I got there.
Then I found out that I didn't know the meaning of the word "unpleasant", or what agony was for that matter. Not until I found myself securely strapped to a gurney, while a robed abomination that was more machine than man shoved a piece of rubber in my mouth, ordering me to bite down. Then he was out and something shifted around me, letting me get a good look of the place where I woke up. I had mere moments to stare in horror at the dozens of very sharp, very long needles pointed all over me, before the torture implements descended and all I knew was pain…
I know I lost consciousness soon thereafter as the agony became too much for my mind to bear.
That was also the first time I had the bloody nightmare.
When I regained consciousness I was informed of what was expected of me. I had to train my cursed powers and use them in the name of the God-Emperor of Mankind.
Or I could get shot then and there if I was lucky.
I shook my head at the memory.
It sucked; there was nothing else to say about it. The fucking pain was bad enough. The little fact that it heralded me being able to touch what was literally Hell for the first time I could remember was so much worse… I shuddered. The mere thought chased off what little vestiges of sleep I had left.
I threw the blanket away and stood up.
"Light up." I ordered. The servo-skull obeyed the voice command. A quiet click came from it. A subdued whoosh followed and the crown-shaped basked it wore like a hat was filled with flickering orange flames. I took a deep breath of the sweet incense. The simple familiarity of the smell made me feel a bit better.
The dancing flames illuminated my home for the past half decade since my soul was bound to the Emperor and I was sent back to the schola. My meager possessions were carefully arranged around the room. That was the Stormtrooper Sergeant's fault. He who enforced discipline and made sure that we all were presentable all the time, because he wouldn't tolerate anything less.
We were on the third such fella ever since I was volunteered for this particular school. The last two suffered rather gruesome and inventive accidents after pissing off a few of my fellow students too much. That bit of fun was swiftly followed by Inquisitorial type of justice. It was ever more bloody, long lasting and gruesome than what my shcola mates could ever think about. The first accident actually made the smarter of us think.
It became obvious why most of our cadre weren't Psykers. They were a test of a sort to see how would we act towards them when pushed. When someone went overboard, well… At least we got break from classes on the next day and a bit of free entertainment.
That also served as additional motivation to study hard and learn how to safeguard our thoughts better. After all, an open mind was like a fortress with its gates opened and sign in orbit inviting various unpleasant types, as Master Hughes used to say - before he got eaten by a daemon in class, the poor sod.
Fortunately I missed that bit of excitement, because anyone in the same wing of the building had to go very strict screening by the Ordo Malleus folks who were here to teach us, while doing some R&R.
A whole third of the people in there were never seen again, though soon we had an upswing in servitors on campus. Totally unrelated.
I mean it. When an honest, Emperor-blessed Inquisitor says so, it becomes a divine truth, one that no one sane is going to nay-say.
I smiled at the good times I remembered and returned my attention to the present. What little I possessed was packed up in a single cargo container, which lay open in the middle of the room. Mostly it held a few changes of clothes, courtesy of the small stipend the students without any other source of income received for expenses. They served as an additional packaging for the most expensive thing I owned - a couple of heavy, leather bound books covered with blessed seals. They contained various litanies and blessings which should protect a careful Psyker when practicing his warp-craft or facing such a phenomena.
Besides that, all I had was my issued gear, which didn't amount to much, because of who I was – a no one, who lacked a family or any other support structure to help pave my way. So instead of something more functional, I had to relegate myself to a standard issue carapace armor, a Laspistol and an old, scarred chainsword.
Then there were the most important things that, while technically "mine", were actually owned by the Holy Inquisition. Those were my credentials - papers that would let me board a Warp capable transport to Kronus, in the Zeus system, Lithesh sector – and the small blessed Sigil signifying that I was working for an Inquisitor… One I haven't yet met, though that wasn't really a surprise. Usually the neonates like myself - once we were deemed sufficiently trained that we could be of some minor use before we got ourselves killed - were sent to meet the Inquisitor under whom we were supposed to apprentice and really start learning the ropes.
I glanced at the dataslate containing my orders and stilled as a shiver ran up my spine. For some reason every time I thought about Kronus I felt unease. My few attempts to divine that was all about were unsuccessful, giving me only vague portents of danger. That was decidedly unhelpful. I would be meeting my master while he was at work over there, something that virtually guaranteed danger.
Shaking my head at the worry, I tore my sight from the cargo crate and checked up the time. It was four in the morning, about a hour or so before I should have gotten up to ensure my arrival at the spaceport would be in time. That left me to check up if everything was packed at my leisure, seal the crate and take a shower. Once that was done, I got into one of my two pair of decent clothes, strapped the armor on and pocketed my credentials and orders. Knowing my school mates, leaving something really valuable in my rooms unattended wasn't a smart thing to do on the day I was to finally leave this place.
It was time to properly adjust the caff to blood content in my veins.
