Warhammer 40K: System Error, I Summoned the Arch-Traitor!

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Kaelen leaned against the metal doorframe of the bathroom, arms folded, watching the chaos unfold with pure, undisguised enjoyment.

If the Phoenix Lord hadn't fallen, if it were Fulgrim giving Konrad Curze a bath today, the scene would look nothing like this.

Fulgrim would have prepared the finest flower petals, the most fragrant oils. He'd have lectured on noble etiquette the entire time while scrubbing his filthy little brother spotless.

Alas. Reality was cruel.

The ones doing that hard labor in Fulgrim's place were two big men and one very scheming angel.

Inside the oversized palace bath, water was going everywhere.

Guilliman and Horus had Konrad Curze pinned against the edge of the pool, one on each side, holding on for dear life.

This was genuine physical work.

Curze was chronically malnourished, thin as a skeleton, but he was still a gene-primarch through and through. His frenzied bursts of strength were enormous, and the waves kicked up by his thrashing slapped both the Lord of Ultramar and the Wolf Shepherd full in the face.

"Hold him down! Horus! His legs are coming toward your side!" Guilliman wiped a face full of bathwater, hands clamped around Curze's feet like iron vices.

"My hands have gone completely numb, Roboute!" Horus's bald head was buried in white foam as he threw his full weight onto Curze's wildly clawing hands.

"Let go of me! You maggots, every word from your mouths is a lie!" Curze thrashed madly in the water, pitch-black eyes blazing with nothing but frenzy. "I'll tear your throats out! I'll peel your skin off and hang it from the walls!"

SPLASH!

Another massive wave of foam burst outward.

Standing directly in front of the bath, Sanguinius wore an oversized waterproof apron and held a wide, stiff-bristled brush normally used for scrubbing power armor. He picked up a bottle of high-end body wash reserved for nobility and squeezed it without restraint onto Curze's matted, greasy black hair.

The Great Angel paid Curze's cursing absolutely no attention.

"Lift your chin a little higher, Konrad. There's still caked mud under your jaw." Sanguinius's tone was perfectly, infuriatingly gentle.

Curze didn't listen. He snapped his mouth open and lunged for the Great Angel's wrist, flinging a sheet of foam straight at Sanguinius's flawless face.

The instant it was about to land, the Great Angel's free left hand moved. Casual. Almost lazy.

SLAP!

A sharp crack split the air above the bath.

No physical contact. Pure psychic force, condensed into one precise, open-handed strike, landing squarely on the back of Curze's skull.

The force was calibrated to perfection. No brain damage. But absolutely enough to stun.

Curze's head snapped sideways. His thrashing locked up for a full 2 seconds.

"Be good, Konrad. Stop squirming." Sanguinius kept that warm, spring-breeze smile on his face and dragged the stiff brush down Curze's back without a shred of mercy.

2 seconds later, the Lord of the Night came back online. Worse than before.

"I'll kill you! I'll pluck every feather from your wings! Arrogant little bird!" Curze thrashed violently again.

SLAP!

2 seconds of stillness.

Then he recovered and started again.

SLAP!

A third.

Kaelen watched from the side and slowly shook his head.

Pure countermeasure technique. When nothing else works, just slap him.

Watching Guilliman and Horus burn through their strength, Kaelen decided it was time to help.

He pulled up the system shop panel and exchanged points for a terminal display. Then he dug through the system's database until he found a particular image, high-definition, heavyweight in every sense of the word, and loaded it onto the screen.

He picked up the terminal and walked to the edge of the bath.

"You two, shift over a little." Kaelen called out to the sweat-soaked Horus and Guilliman.

Both primarchs moved aside immediately, opening a gap.

Kaelen pushed the terminal screen to within 10 centimeters of Curze's face.

"Here you go, Lord of the Night. Take a good look at this." He tapped the screen.

Curze had been winding up for another torrent of abuse. His gaze landed on the lit screen instead.

Half a second passed.

The last trace of color drained from Curze's already pale face, leaving it whiter than freshly painted plaster.

SPLASH!

Every muscle in his body, taut with resistance a moment ago, went completely slack.

His eyes rolled back. The will to fight left him all at once. He toppled straight backward and floated on the foam-covered surface, limp as a corpse.

Something he had believed in with absolute certainty, deep in his chest, had just shattered into dust.

"What happened to him?" Horus shook out his wrists, staring at the suddenly docile Curze.

"Don't worry about it." Kaelen put the terminal away. "Just wash him. Quickly."

The three primarchs seized the opportunity and went into full assembly-line mode. Rinse, scrub, trim the nails, blow dry. The whole process ran like clockwork.

Half an hour later.

The palace VIP lounge.

Konrad Curze sat in the corner of an oversized leather sofa, dressed in a clean black silk robe, knees pulled to his chest, chin resting on them. His eyes stared at the ornate wall across the room, hollow and unfocused.

Washed clean of all the grime and grease, the Lord of the Eighth Legion's features were actually striking. That pale, melancholic quality had nowhere left to hide, and it filled the room.

He didn't speak. Didn't move. Just sat there, somewhere far away.

Horus toweled off his head, pulled on a loose robe, and walked over to Kaelen.

"My friend," he said, once the ordeal of the bath was officially behind them, "what did you show my brother?"

Guilliman looked over. Sanguinius, still smoothing his wings back into order, did the same.

"How do I even explain this." Kaelen paused. "I think if any of you saw it, you'd call it blasphemous."

"About what?"

"Fulgrim."

He glanced over at Curze, shook his head, and sighed.

"Think of it this way. Imagine you met the Emperor again, and the Emperor said something so utterly strange that it destroyed the image of him you'd carried your whole life. That's what it was like. My Wolf God."

Horus was quiet for a moment. "That would be painful. Though I think I could still accept Father, whatever he looked like."

A knock at the door cut through the room.

"Come in." Guilliman frowned.

"Forgive the interruption, my lords." Kullen's voice.

The heavy metal door swung open. Kullen led Azrael and the others into the lounge.

Azrael's first step through the doorway stopped dead.

He had spent the entire journey steeling himself. He had built up every mental wall he could think of, preparing to face figures who existed only in historical records. But when he actually raised his eyes and saw who was in the room, his mind went blank.

The first thing he saw was the perfect being with golden hair over his shoulders and pure white wings folded at his back. Known to every soul in the Imperium. The Great Angel. Sanguinius. He was actually alive.

Then Azrael saw the massive figure standing beside him. An immensely imposing bald man, broad as a wall, dressed in a loose robe, laughing quietly with a mortal.

The Arch-Traitor. Horus Lupercal.

And it didn't stop there.

Azrael's gaze moved in horror to the corner of the sofa. A pale man in black robes, dark hair hanging loose over his shoulders, huddled there like a shadow.

That face. Those eerily sunken features. The gene-primarch of the Eighth Legion. Konrad Curze. The sworn, blood enemy of the Lion and the First Legion.

Azrael's breathing came apart.

Behind him, the Deathwing Terminator veterans were no steadier.

"Azrael." Kullen turned his head and said it quietly.

The Supreme Grand Master snapped back. He forced down the storm of emotion threatening to break through, turned to the veterans behind him, and together they dropped to one knee in the most formal salute the Legion knew.

"The Dark Angels Chapter." Azrael's voice shook. "Supreme Grand Master Azrael, paying respects to the lord primarchs."

Whether Horus or Curze, there was only one explanation for them standing here, unharmed and at peace. The Master of Mankind had personally issued a decree of absolution.

Guilliman stepped forward and raised his hand.

"Rise, sons of the Lion. You have come a long way."

➤ Next: Curze's Cruel Joke

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