Ben Counter
The Horus Heresy. Galaxy In Flames
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
The Primarchs
THE WARMASTER HORUS
Commander of the Sons of Horns Legion
ANGRON Primarch of the World Eaters
FULGRIM Primarch of the Emperor's Children
MORTARION Primarch of the Death Guard
The Sons of Horus
EZEKYLE ABADDON First Captain of the Sons of Horus
TARIK TORGADDON Captain, 2nd Company, Sons of Horus
IACTON QRUZE, 'THE HALF-HEARD' Captain, 3rd Company, Sons of Horus
HORUS AXIMAND, 'LITTLE HORUS' Captain, 5th Company, Sons of Horus
SERGHAR TARGOST Captain, 7th Company, Sons of Horus, lodge master
GARVIEL LOKEN Captain, 10th Company, Sons of Horus
Luc SEDIRAE Captain, 13th Company, Sons of Horus
TYBALT MARR, 'THE EITHER' Captain, 18th Company, Sons of Horus
KALUS EKADDON, CAPTAIN Catulan Reaver Squad, Sons of Horus
FALKUS KIBRE, 'WIDOWMAKER' Captain, Justaerin Terminator Squad, Sons of Horus
NERO VIPUS Sergeant, Locasta Tactical Squad, Sons of Horus
MALOGHURST 'THE TWISTED' Equerry to the Warmaster
Other Space Marines
EREBUS First Chaplain of the Word Bearers
KHARN Captain, 8th Assault Company of the World Eaters
NATHANIAL GARRO Captain of the Death Guard
Lucius Emperor's Children swordsman
SAUL TARVITZ First Captain of the Emperor's Children
EIDOLON Lord Commander of the Emperor's Children
FABIUS BILE Emperor's Children Apothecary
The Legio Mortis
PRINCEPS ESAU TURNET Commander of the Dies Irae, an Imperator-class Titan
MODERATI PRIMUS CASSAR One of the senior crew of the Dies Irae
MODERATI PRIMUS ARUKEN Another of the Dies Irae's crew
Non-Astartes Imperials
MECHANICUM ADEPT REGULUS Mechanicum representative to Horus, he commands the Legion's robots and maintains its fighting machines
ING МАЕ SING Mistress of Astropaths
KYRIL SINDERMANN Primary iterator
MERSADIE OLITON Official remembrancer, documentarist
EUPHRATI KEELER Official remembrancer, imagist
PEETER EGON MOMUS Architect Designate
MAGGARD Maloghurst's civilian enforcer
PART ONE. LONG KNIVES
ONE
The Emperor protects
Long night
The music of the spheres
'I WAS THERE,' said Titus Cassar, his wavering voice barely reaching the back of the chamber. 'I was there the day that Horus turned his face from the Emperor,’
His words brought a collective sigh from the Lec-titio Divinitatus congregation and as one they lowered their heads at such a terrible thought. From the back of the chamber, an abandoned munitions hold deep in the under-decks of the Warmaster's flagship, the Vengeful Spirit, Kyril Sindermann watched and winced at Cassar's awkward delivery. The man was no iterator, that was for sure, but his words carried the sure and certain faith of someone who truly believed in the things he was saying.
Sindermann envied him that certainty.
It had been many months since he had felt anything approaching certainty.
As the Primary Iterator of the 63rd Expedition, it was Kyril Sindermann's job to promulgate the Imperial Truth of the Great Crusade, illuminating those worlds brought into compliance of the rule of the Emperor and the glory of the Imperium. Bringing the light of reason and secular truth to the furthest flung reaches of the ever-expanding human empire had been a noble undertaking.
But somewhere along the way, things had gone wrong.
Sindermann wasn't sure when it had happened. On Xenobia? On Davin? On Aureus? Or on any one of a dozen other worlds brought into compliance?
Once he had been known as the arch prophet of secular truth, but times had changed and he found himself remembering his Sahlonum, the Sumatu-ran philosopher who had wondered why the light of new science seemed not to illuminate as far as the old sorceries had.
Titus Cassar continued his droning sermon, and Sindermann returned his attention to the man. Tall and angular, Cassar wore the uniform of a moderati primus, one of the senior commanders of the Dies Irae, an Imperator-class Battle Titan. Sindermann suspected it was this rank, combined with his earlier friendship with Euphrati Keeler, that had granted his status within the Lectitio Divinitatus; status that he was clearly out of his depth in handling.
Euphrati Keeler: imagist, evangelist...
...Saint.
He remembered meeting Euphrati, a feisty, supremely self-confident woman, on the embarkation deck before they had left for the surface of Sixty-Three Nineteen, unaware of the horror they would witness in the depths of the Whisperhead Mountains.
Together with Captain Loken, they had seen the warp-spawned monstrosity Xayver Jubal had been wrought into. Sindermann had struggled to rationalise what he had seen by burying himself in his books and learning to better understand what had occurred. Euphrati had no such sanctuary and had turned to the growing Lectitio Divinitatus cult for solace.
Venerating the Emperor as a divine being, the cult had grown from humble beginnings to a movement that was spreading throughout the Expedition fleets of the galaxy - much to the fury of the War-master. Where before the cult had lacked a focus, in Euphrati Keeler, it had found its first martyr and saint.
Sindermann remembered the day when he had witnessed Euphrati Keeler stand before a nightmare horror from beyond the gates of the Empyrean and hurl it back from whence it had come. He had seen her bathed in killing fire and walk away unscathed, a blinding light streaming from the outstretched hand in which she had held a silver Imperial eagle. Others had seen it too, Ing Mae Sing, Mistress of the Fleet's astropaths and a dozen of the ship's arms men. Word had spread fast and Euphrati had
become, overnight, a saint in the eyes of the faithful and an icon to cling to on the frontier of space.
He was unsure why he had even come to this meeting - not a meeting, he corrected himself, but a service, a religious sermon - for there was a very real danger of recognition. Membership of the Lec-titio Divinitatus was forbidden and if he were discovered, it would be the end of his career as an iterator.
'Now we shall contemplate the word of the Emperor,’ continued Cassar, reading from a small leather chapbook. Sindermann was reminded of the Bondsman Number 7 books in which the late Ignace Karkasy had written his scandalous poetry. Poetry that had, if Mersadie Oliton's suspicions were correct, caused his murder.
Sinderman thought that the writings of the Lecti-tio Divinitatus were scarcely less dangerous.
We have some new faithful among us,' said Cassar, and Sindermann felt every eye in the chamber turn upon him. Used to facing entire continents' worth of audience, Sindermann was suddenly acutely embarrassed by their scrutiny.
When people are first drawn to adoration of the Emperor, it is only natural that they should have questions,’ said Cassar. They know the Emperor must be a god, for he has god-like powers over all human species, but aside from this, they are in the dark.'
This, at least, Sindermann agreed with.
'Most importantly, they ask, "If the Emperor truly is a god, then what does he do with his divine
power?" We do not see His hand reaching down from the sky, and precious few of us are blessed with visions granted by Him. So does he not care for the majority of His subjects?"