The Whisper of the Maddened Son

The left talons of his power claws dissected the crooked furry Xenos in two in a single swing. This one his sons called Mercy. He never gave it a name. He took a step to the side, the energy blast of the crooked xenos´ weaponry harmlessly passing besides him.

Fighting always cleared his mind, it was one of the few things that managed to do that. Between the Crusade, his visions and now that damned mortal, the adrenaline rush of the battlefield was still something that cleared his mind.

He didn't need to be fighting this campaign personally, a battalion was more than enough to subdue this world, yet he came here solely to clear his mind.

He threw one of the small knives he had, his sons called them Widowmakers, he cared not about it.

He couldn't quite decide what to do about Melkor. He read and reread almost every single thing he had written. It was not much, nor was it greatly written. Grammar mistakes littered the text like pollution clouded Nostramo´s night sky, but he still read it.

It was naive. It was hopeful. It was annoying. Yet it made some accursed sense. It made damnable sense that now not even his few dreams could make him stop thinking of those damned words. If not for the mistakes he would have wondered if this had been Vulkan or Fulgrim speaking, though he knew their flair would be far different.

Hope… That accursed thing. The trick of the mind that kept men dreaming for a better tomorrow. He once believed in it, a long time ago. Now? Now he knew it was a lie. A lie concocted to keep men from accepting what they all were. Monsters, sinners, all deserving of punishment. Even Melkor, even him, was a sinner. What other thing could be? He was but a man.

Yet that damned mortal wrote of it as if it was something real. He called him a child, even.

The Xenos bones crackled as they broke under the weight of his steps.

A child. Not even the Emperor had called him that, not his father, not his brothers. Yet that damned mortal had. How had he not killed him then? He was defying his Lord in doing what he did, he had sinned. How did he not kill him then?

The first time he suggested that Fulgrim and he would betray the Imperium. He had seen himself many times killing his brother´s sons. He was always confused on how such a situation would come. For what reason would he be killing Wolves of Fenris, the Angels of Darkness and those pretty Ravens… Out of them all, the Ravens were what disgusted him the least. For him to be killing them they must be sinners, but the Ravens were more personal than that. He hated Corvus.

The Lion, Fulgrim, Russ and even Corvus. For all their faults, their masks, their pettiness, their blindness he could never picture them turning on his father. Not even the damned Raven. He must have chosen his legion´s name wisely, always flying close to shiny things. Like his father.

Father… The Emperor… Why had the Emperor made him soo… Soo miserable. Everything went as it always went. Everything went as his sight showed it, so why did the Emperor make him in this way? Why had he landed in Nostramo? Wasn't it also the Emperor´s fault that the Primarch were "stolen" from him and thrown into worlds that suited the disposition of their Terran sons so "well".

Everything was as it was meant to be, yet the damned mortal had to say no to that.

He punched a Xenos head clean off with a sideswipe of his fist, leaving broken cranium and splattered blood on the floor. He did not even bother to look at the thing before taking its life.

He had to say. "The Emperor did not make you a king. You made yourself a king." He had even the gall to tell him that it was time for him to choose what he wanted and who he was.

He threw a Widowmaker into the distance, killing ten Xenos in a row with a single throw, the power blade slicing their necks clean off.

What a fool. What a naive damnable fool.

He lunged forward killing a clustered group of Xenos in a single swing of his claws. They fell, he stepped on them without thinking and their bones cracked under his weight. He stepped on them, again and again and again. As if he kicked them downwards, the cracks turning to shattering. The still warm blood being pressured to leave the body by the kicks of the Nighthaunter, and then when the foot of his battleplate stood barely in a mixture of blood and shattered bones he stopped, and his heart finally slowed.

He gazed into the distance, his sons had advanced much since he stopped. He did not care to lead a vanguard. He was not Angron with his hateful need for blood, or Fulgrim with his penchant for martial glory. A battle is a battle, you win or you lose, and yet the Atromentar, in their Terminator Armor, remains beside him, were they in regular battle plate the skull of the Nostraman lion would have been seen… That beast was almost extinct… He should have told them to advance without him, he preferred to fight alone… To be alone.

"What Sev?" He asked, snarling with annoyance. His first captain had been sent with half of the honor guard to serve as the spear tip of the battle. Equerry Shang had remained behind with the other half, desperately trying to keep up with their lord, while just wished for solitude.

"The Nightfall just received a transmission from the Pride of the Emperor. The Shipmaster says it was sent using Lord Fulgrim's code."

His brother never had the need to contact him… Well he never had the need these past 40 years. He had sent Melkor to him half a year ago. They had talked, he even avoided telling Melkor that the Pride had been in the neighboring sector of the crusade shortly after their last talk… Well he had put him out in that talk, broken a few ribs, not that he could have spoken to him after that. But he had spoken to Fulgrim then.

"Put it through."

Fulgrim checked and rechecked everything, once, twice, thrice, yet he always arrived at the same conclusion. Melkor would die if the stasis chamber he was in ever turned off for but a second. There was no time to do the necessary procedure to save him, and whatever medical drugs his chief apothecary thought of as a possible option to delay his death enough for him to be operated on were either too weak to have any noticeable effect or powerful enough that they themselves would kill him once ingested.

They had made the required test using the genetic, using the glass he had drank from when they had been watching the musical spectacle. And he had found out how wildly different Melkor´s genetic make up was, compared to the regular mortal. He was infinitely human, his body flawed, imperfect, primitive in a sense, relatively to the mortals of the Imperium. It was as if he was looking at the past in the present, and that was why nothing they could give him would delay enough without killing. His human body was simply not made to handle it. and that was as curious as it was irritating to the Phoenician. He may be a demigod, but his was not the field of crafting miracles, and Melkor needed a miracle to be saved.

Melkor´s death was not a problem. The problem of his death would be his brother, Curze. For the first time in half a century he reached out to one of his brothers as more than a general in the crusade. He reached to talk, to confide, for advice concerning this random mortal. Melkor caused Curze to reach out for more, and now Melkor was an inch from death. He did not wish to know how Curze would take that aftermath. Would he isolate himself? He after all would not have any reason to reach out anymore. Or would he rage? Fulgrim had seen his volatility first hand before. He did not wish to deal with it again.

Though if he was honest with himself. He perhaps shared an inkling of responsibility for his situation. It happened when he was alone with his collection. But there were no Demons. The Imperial Truth said it, and there was no way his father, the Emperor, would preach something that was not in fact true. Melkor had shouted "SHUT UP DEMON!", yet such a thing was borne of superstition, not the rational truth of the universe. But such a thing was impossible. Whatever happened to Melkor was a question as good as any. No. He was overthinking. Whatever happened to Melkor could be explained. He just didn't notice it happening, somehow.

Still… That does not matter, what mattered is that Curze needed to be told. Melkor was his man. Well, was he? He still was puzzled by Melkor´s status with his brother. That doesn't matter. He would deliver the man to his brother and let him sort it all. After all, it was not his responsibility was it?

"No," he heard the depths of his mind reply back to his thought. "You are blameless, in this. It was the mortal´s frailty."

Of course he was blameless. Why had he pondered otherwise?

"Send an Astropathic message to the Nightfall. I have to speak with him."

The Nightfall was not a vessel that knew the touch of many Primarchs, nor did he know it often. He knew the Phoenicians touch, from the early days its Lord had come home. He knew the touch of the Lord of the Iron Tenth, through the bond with the 3rd son, and he knew the touch of the Cyclops, in the only instance his master and him met before the compliance of the Lightning Tower, where he had gifted his Lord with the crystal sphere to help his mind´s eye. Yet it had been half a century since any other of the Emperor's sons walked on his decks and now the Phoenician was walking again on his deck. The Nightfall had a visitor.

Only the oldest Nightlords could have boasted that they had seen the Phoenician. His time helping his brother adjust to the Imperium had been in an earlier age, yet this did not stop many to lie about it. Whenever the Phoenician came up in conversations amongst the Night lords (which to be fair was exceedingly rare) , many would lie that they had been present the last time the Prefector of Chemos had been aboard. Everyone loves a good lie, especially if they were Nostramans. Lying was second nature to them, knowing how to lie meant you would survive in the sunless world, knowing how to lie and how to spot a lie that is. Yet today no one would need to lie when asked if they had seen the Phoenician. Practically the entire ship had been present when Lord Fulgrim stepped down the Firebird with a coffin in tow. A coffin that was in truth an active stasis field.

Fulgrim stood like a sore thumb. His white silver hair, alongside the purple and gold of his panoply of war contrasting wildly with the smooth jet black of the Nightfall´s interior. He was like a brightly burning candle in a dark room. His presence there almost made some forget the Nighthaunter was there as well, with how powerful the Phoenician´s presence was, some, but not Shang.

He was the Equerry of the Primarch, if one amongst his legion was used with dealing with the Emperor´s sons it would be him. Shang was also old, though not that old to have seen the Phoenician many times. He had joined the Legion in its early Nostraman days, alongside the would-be First Captain, Jago Sevetarion.

His Lord was to his side, or rather he was to the side of his Lord. In the last months, his father had been restless, a dangerous thing considering he was The Nighthaunter, and yet. Yet he was just as less volatile, something strange. There had been no notable decrease in his visions, but the backlash had lessened slightly. He did not know what was going on in his father's mind, but whatever it was, he would follow him to the end.

He was almost sure his brothers were unsettled by Fulgrim. He was like a magnet drawing everyone closer, yet he was an outsider. Outsiders were never really liked in Nostramo. Nostramo was a unique world and as all unique things in reality it was highly isolated from others.

"Brother." His lord said in gothic, almost snarling, but not quite. "What has happened to the fool? Why is he in stasis?"

"There was an incident, as I mentioned before. The field is to halt his death. I would like to speak about it in private, dear brother." Fulgrim´s smile was captivating and his honeyed words could have swayed many to go down to their knees and beg for but a glance of his lilac eyes. Fortunately none of his brothers nor of the mortals in the edges of the hanger, witnessing this, were stupid enough to do that.

Though Curze's expression barely shifted, the Equerry could feel the cold ripple of his displeasure. Controlled now, but lurking just beneath, like a razor at the edge of sanity.

There was silence then, neither demi-god speaking a word or moving. The silence of demi-gods contrasting with the distant hum of machinery and the punctuating sound of tools softly being put aside as the mortals in the hangar bay took a little from their time to witness the Emperor's sons.

And then, the Last Judge moved. He took steps to see the state of the mortal in stasis. He watched his state silently. His brother moved just behind him, strangely silent. Shang did not know how the Phoenician would be processing his Lord´s strange priorities. Melkor was a mortal, a fool many in the legion called him, even his father had called him a fool.

"Take the coffin to my chamber." He said looking at the deep wounds on the mortal. Wounds that could only have been inflicted by a blade driven deep into his arms. He turned to Fulgrim then. "We will speak of it there, follow me."

The Phoenician kept silent, but Shang could see whenever Fulgrim´s eyes and the eyes of his Lord locked, the enlarged Inky black so common to Nostramo and the pure lilac iris of the Phoenican, that a thousand unspoken words filtered through them. Entire conversations happening without a single sound being uttered.

He followed the Primarchs to his Lord´s sanctum, and then he entered it. Out of all Night Lords only Shang and the First Captain had been allowed in his chamber, allowed to witness what was about to happen between the sons of the Emperor. Was it some sort of trust his Lord had of him? Or was it something else? He did not truly know.

The coffin had been brought just close enough to the Nighthaunter´s obsidian throne where he sat leisurely as if it was a simple chair to be easily seen. Fulgrim had taken one of the chairs from a Primarch sized table. One of the many pieces of furniture that were sized for the Primarch´s built in here.

They sat opposite to each other, with the coffin between them, a mortal dividing demigods.

"Fulgrim, what happened?" His father asked quite calmly. There was no snarling like before, just the clear and common hiss of his voice.

"I showed my storeroom, where I have the Third's trophies as you know, and when we reached this sword." The Phoenician pulled a blade of silver and lilac from his sheath. It was unmistakable Xenos in origin. Why the third Primarch had Shang could only guess. "And then after a few seconds of him staring intently at it. He shouted 'SHUT UP DEMON', and then collapsed, the wounds opened then."

His father nodded as the Phoenician finished his tale. Without embellishments this time. Strange, Fulgrim was widely known for that, and yet Fulgrim also knew his father the best amongst his brothers. Perhaps he knows that he hates embellishments so he cut them out. It wouldn't be a bad hypothesis. Curze bit his lip, a single tear of rich Primarch blood started to fall down his alabaster skin.

"Are you trying to lie to me brother?" Curze then asked. Shang detected a slight hint of confusion. His father´s little details was something the Equerry had picked up over the Crusade but confusion was something seldom seen in the Nighhaunter. He had only seen it once before, in a compliance that said world threw him a feast upon his arrival. By far the strangest compliance the Night Lords ever had. That one seemed far more adequate for the Third.

"How dare you!" Fulgrim immediately jumped in outrage. "I would never lie to any of our brothers." The indignation in the Phoenician´s voice was hard to miss. His father looked unimpressed, he simply turned his eyes to the now standing Phoenician and continued.

"A lie by omission is still a lie." He said, quietly. Yet even quietly his words chilled the air. Fulgrim eyed his brother intently. Shang did not know what could be going through the Phoenicians mind, but it was clear he had his ego bruised.

"Why did you keep a Xenos artifact, Fulgrim? That isn't like you, as far as I know." Curze's voice was measured, not the usual snarling edge that marked his speech. He was shifting the argument, a subtle but effective tactic, and Shang saw his father's rare use of diplomacy, something he seldom employed. It was one of Fulgrim's early lessons, back when the Phoenician had helped him adjust to the Imperium.

Fulgrim's lilac eyes flicked down to the sword in his hand. "It is a trophy from the compliance of the Laeren," he said, his voice soft, almost reverent. "And it's immaculate." There was a strange gleam in Fulgrim's eyes as he stared at the blade, as if it held more than just material value to him. Shang gave little value to it, yet his Lord remained intently staring at his brother

"It is of Xenos origin, Fulgrim." His words were calm, but there was a dangerous undercurrent beneath them. "I thought you preferred trophies from human worlds, not alien ones. As far as I know, this is the first Xenos artifact you've taken from a compliance."

Shang saw Fulgrim's grip tightening around the sword's hilt. Whatever Fulgrim´s mind was thinking in this moment was not good. The Lord Commander could feel Sevetar tightening the grip on his Nostraman chainglaive just beside him. This was not good. If the Primarchs came to blows he knew both would rush to assist their Lord, yet both knew full well they were hopelessly outmatched.

Curze took a minute before he spoke again. "It was no accusation." He said raising his arms in a gesture to calm the Phoenician "You are no liar Fulgrim. It was just some levity." There was some small understanding, some echo of the silk in Fulgrim´s voice that the Nighthaunter had learned long ago to use yet never did.

Fulgrim smiled at this. Yet Shang could see it was a sad smile, one small shame as if he was only now realizing something that had always been clear.

"Dear brother" The Phoenician spoke. There was no honey then, just softly woven silk, comforting and rich. "Where did you find this mortal? He is nothing like I have ever seen."

"I did not find him. He found me. He is strange. A naive fool with grand delusions. A fool who believes a pebble can change the course of a river." The way his father spoke then. Was Shang hearing some sort of sad acknowledgment there? Did his father have a grudging respect for the mortal? No. It couldn't be. Melkor was many things, all of which his father said were true, but he was a mortal. What sort of things did he tell the Primarch away from the sight of the Legion at large that he would gain some form of respect from THE Nighthaunter.

"Fabius did some tests, and he is-"

"Unique." Curze interrupted his brother. "An anomaly? The mortal human with the purest genetic code in the entire galaxy? He is. I do not know how, nor do I care." He said. And Shang couldn't help but wonder what those words meant in truth, yet he knew they were far more important than they seemed.

"Father would give you anything you asked if you told him. You know he wishes to heal the damage that the human genome suffered in Old Night. He is the key to that." Fulgrim said, surprised at his brother's indifference. That was new. Few amongst the Astartes knew the Emperor´s private wishes, if this was true they had struck the proverbial adamantium vein.

"Father." Curze snarled. "I removed his chair from my sanctum a long time ago, and I do not plan to add it back. I am a broken tool in his eyes. Something to be used till the end of the crusade and then discarded, yet all of that is his fault. I´ll not tell my father. Not now, or ever, unless he bothers to remove the nails from Angron. After all, if he is so perfect, why does he let his son live like that? Melkor is not the key to that. He is a key, and one I will not give up willingly." That was surprising for Shang, he knew his father's relationship with the Emperor had always been tense, but Nighthaunter had never spoken any sign of blatant hostility, yet it did not matter. The Dominus Nox was his father, and he was his son.

"Do not speak of father that way." Fulgrim warned. His silken words turned more into bladed stillness. "None of us blame father for our flaws, Konrad. If you hate what you've become, change it."

Shang could feel the hair grow still, his father´s fist clenching. If he had been armed, perhaps he would have lunged at the Phoenician then and there in retaliation.

"I told you to not use that name." The Nighthaunter spoke under gritted teeth.

"Then choose another if you care so much. Your people gave you a title, not a name, and you know this. But don't ever use father as the scapegoat for your flaws. None of us do. We are as we became, if you do not like something about yourself then improve.

Change for the better. I have done that in my legion, start doing it in yours." Wrong Shang thought. Nighthaunter did indeed translate to a name in Nostraman, though it was also a title. It was a word that served for both.

A tear of blood started to fall on Konrad´s lips. "Leave me Fulgrim. You delivered him, that is all you had to do. Return to the crusade you love so much, and get rid of that Xenos blade. How do you think Ferrus would react if he heard that you stopped using Fireblade in favor of that thing."

Fulgrim got up, and turned away, but before he opened the door he turned again to his brother. To Shang´s father, to the Equerry´s Lord. "I will think of what you said. Do the same for my words." And then he left, leaving the progenitor of the Eighth Legion alone with his sons.

"Shang, Sev, what do you think of my brother?" The Nighthaunter turned to them. Shang felt his heart race at his name being called out by his lord.

"He is more beautiful than City's Edge." Sevetar said with a short laugh.

"Of course he is, Sevatar. Its City´s Edge, it may be the best place in Nostramo, but it is still Nostramo, and beside City´s Edge has a better aesthetic sense. Less gold and more silver." Shang countered. He had grown up in City´s Edge, the place most known for the affluent families to make their home in. Affluent yet not where the old gang nobility held their estates, those were high in the hivespires and in the slums of the lower hive, where their influence once extended throughout the entirety of Quintos like a poisoned bloodstream.

"Something happened to him." Their attention swiftly returned to their father as he continued after them. "I never managed to lead the conversation when Fulgrim was present, and besides he would never react this harshly when I called him a liar. He never does."

"And only the mortal could tell us what it is, isn't it, Sire?" Sevetar concluded.

The Nighthaunter nodded.

"And how will we get him speaking, Sire? I´ve seen street urchins in a better state after being mugged than him."

"I will ask the Emperor for compliance alongside Magnus. He is the best option for this."

"What about Zharost? If you seek Magnus for his psychic powers, the Chief Librarian is a better option." Questioned Shang. Why not use their own Librarius, that would be logical. Whatever this mortal was, he was a legion member first (by the Dominus´s Nox's own decree), and such matters are best left within the Legion.

"I'd rather not have the rest of the Legion waste their attention on this distraction. Soon enough he will be free from many of his duties as a Librarian, yet his usefulness to me…" Curze´s voice lingered for a moment. Shang couldn't help but think he was teasing them with something he would not reveal. Guarding Zharost for another time, but why? Shang couldn't possibly know. He couldn't think of why the Last Judge preferred filling out a formal request to the Emperor, for something that possibly could be refused instead of ordering his Librarius for it, yet there was nothing he could do but obey.

Melkor stood atop a hill, around him tall drying grass golden under summer's midday sun. He gazed into the distance, into the buildings he would never see again, into the river that had always been the lifeblood of the city he lived, the artery that stood now dry. He gazed into the ocean that he would never see once more. If he turned east, in the distance he could see the bridge, cast in the color of rusted iron, that tied shore and shore together, and behind the towering buildings of the urban area he could almost see those monuments that certainly were nought but dusted sand or melted metal somewhere on Imperial Terra.

He would never see all of these things again. All he grew up in, all the home he had, for there was no home for him anymore. His city was irradiated dust most likely, the sea he once bathed during summer, when he bothered going to the beach, nothing but vapor that would never come down in rain. There was no city, there was no sea, there was no memory.

There was no beach to see the sunset from, no ocean to dive in, no ancient buildings, memoirs of an ancient glorious age to visit, to ponder. No proud remains of the deeds of his countrymen. No stalwart history to speak to the future. There were no remains.

He gazed upon it, the soft summer breeze touching him softly in his face. He tried to tighten his grip but he noticed he was holding something. He brought it up. A book, one he thought would never read again. One he would never see again.

He opened a random page, looked at the black inked sheets of paper and read a random line. "Among the tales of sorrow and of ruin that came down to us from the darkness of those days there are yet some in which amid weeping there is joy and under the shadow of death light that endures."

He smiled sadly. Yes much sorrow there is, for a time without memory. And there will be much more sorrow and weeping before there is joy in this age. In the age that he did not belong to.

He said words in that forgotten tongue of his, in that burned hill of his. Words of sadness, of memory, but these were echoes of his thoughts, just like that hill he stood, and grass he witnessed, the wind he felt and the sea he longed for, for the first time in his life, were an echo of an echo. For that is what memory is for a mortal, an echo of an echo. The likeness of the event cast in the imperfect image of time, reflected in the blurred glass of one's mind.

And yet, he couldn't stop thinking of this age. Of the time that was stolen from him, of the friends he would never see again, but perhaps in death. Of the memories that were snatched from him before they could have even been made. Of laughter and the rage he would have with those he played with.

All of that had been stolen, broken or turned to dust. In the age of storms he was thrown in, he took the name of the mightiest amongst the mighty for himself, but in the end was nought but a pebble in the river of time. Just like he was in the time he was stolen from. The story was never his, never his.

A teardrop fell from his right eye, and he cried.