Chapter 103 - Curze's Life — The Conversation
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Curze's Life
Curze didn't like reading.
Even back when he'd ruled all of Nostramo, he'd barely cracked a book.
Dry. Tedious. The kind of thing that put a man to sleep before he'd finished a page.
That was Curze's summary of every piece of knowledge bound between two covers. He didn't deny it was useful. Learning it was just unbearably dull.
The few books he had bothered with were mostly on governance — and even then, once he'd actually taken the throne, the Lord of the Night discovered something humbling. He couldn't match the work of the mortal bureaucrats Nostramo had produced. Not even during the Legion era.
Curze, to his credit, had enough self-awareness to know he was lousy at the day-to-day grind. So he handed the administrative reins to his subordinates, chief among them his favorite son, Jago Sevatarion.
Now? Now he didn't have those headaches anymore.
No Legion to run. No territory to hold. Every day he just tagged along with Horus and Sanguinius, the two brothers dragging him from one place to the next. When something came up, he'd show his face and lean on people. On the side, he helped Guilliman handle a few corrupt officials who needed the kind of intimidation only a Primarch's hands could deliver.
The rest of his time, vast stretches of it, he spent curled up in the small chamber off his quarters.
The flagship Glory of Terra, in a cabin retrofitted for a Primarch's frame.
Konrad Curze was wedged into an oversized soft-leather couch, a thick hardcover propped open in his pale hands. The shelf beside him held more of the same.
He wasn't faking it. He was actually reading.
And enjoying it.
The books had been pushed on him by Kaelen. The mortal had scrounged up a strange pile of ancient documents: Lectures on Criminal Law, Principles of Jurisprudence, Compendium of Classical Judicial Cases, and so on.
Even Curze found it hard to believe he could sit still and absorb them. He knew it wasn't any psychic charm laid into the pages. It was the writing itself, plain, accessible, built around vivid criminal cases and the reasoning behind each verdict.
As for the Emperor's commission, Kaelen had zero intention of playing Curze's babysitter.
A paranoid zealot who'd been stubborn for 10,000 years wasn't going to be force-fed humility. You couldn't shove his head down and make him admit fault. Once a mindset that rigid sets, prying at it from the outside only snaps the mind in half.
So Kaelen tried a different angle.
Toss a few books in. Wait for Curze to finish them. Then drag Horus and Sanguinius into Curze's cabin for a "debate session."
Just the few of them. Stools pulled into a circle. No outsiders. No officials reciting legal code at the ceiling.
Just bros.
Just goddamn bros, because only bros are willing to sit through your rambling and then, piece by piece, nudge your crooked path back toward straight. Other people lie to you. Bros? Bros don't lie.
Curze was a fanatic for order and fairness. The moment opposing viewpoints collided, that paranoia-stuffed brain of his lit up with curiosity. To make sure he could shut Kaelen and Horus up in the next debate, he started picking up more books on his own.
Slowly, under that virtuous cycle, the closed-loop logic he'd maintained for 10,000 years, the one held together with flayed skin and bodies strung from lampposts, began to loosen.
And when the psychic visions came clawing back into his skull, splitting his head open with horror, he was no longer alone in the dark, tearing at his own hair.
Sanguinius would push the door open, smile, and press a cup of hot tea into his hand. The way Fulgrim used to, long ago.
Horus would clap his shoulder and start telling terrible jokes from the Great Crusade.
Curze closed his eyes.
This life, this rhythm... honestly wasn't bad.
He also had to admit Kaelen was no ordinary man. Just a baseline mortal, plain as they came, and yet he pulled people in with ideas no one else thought to have. And the bastard could cook, too.
Grrrrr—
A sudden, indignant protest broke the quiet of the cabin.
Curze clutched his hollow stomach.
"Hungry..."
He muttered it hoarsely, one pale hand already sliding by reflex into the gap between the couch cushions.
Looking for dried rat.
On his first day aboard, he'd hunted the fat black rats nesting in the lower decks' ventilation ducts. Strung them up in the engine room to dry-roast into snacks.
He rummaged. Nothing. He'd eaten them all.
Curze sighed. A while back, he'd have just crawled into the ducts, dropped down to the lower decks, torn open a couple of criminals, and caught a fresh batch of rats on the way back.
Now?
"Suppose I'll go to the mess."
He pushed himself up off the couch. Before opening the door, he glanced sideways at the full-length mirror.
Dust on the wide black robe. Black hair matted into greasy strands.
Curze shivered on the spot.
The image flashed through his head instantly, Sanguinius, holding a wide stiff-bristled scrub brush, wearing that deceptively sweet smile. Horus and Guilliman's thick arms pinning his legs down.
No. Wash first. Definitely wash first.
Curze had zero interest in being hauled to the bath pool again for an arrogant winged bastard to scour him clean. That had been cruel and unusual punishment with no floor and no ceiling.
Besides, personal hygiene, not contaminating the flagship's air circulation, that counted as observing order, didn't it?
Right. Exactly. That.
The Lord of the Night turned smartly on his heel and ducked into his private bath.
10 minutes later, scrubbed clean and dressed in a crisp black duty uniform, Konrad Curze pushed open the cabin door.
The guards in the corridor caught sight of the pale, towering figure and snapped to attention so fast they forgot to breathe.
Curze ignored them and headed straight for the senior officers' mess.
The automatic doors hissed apart.
Horus and Sanguinius were already at the long table, eating. The moment they saw Curze walk in, they broke off their conversation and waved their brother over with warm enthusiasm, the recluse had finally come out of his cave. Loken and Kullen sat nearby and inclined their heads respectfully to the Primarch.
Kaelen came out of the back galley wearing insulated gloves, carrying a heavy iron pot.
"Just in time, my Lord of the Night." Kaelen tapped the pot's rim with the ladle. "Got something new for you to try today."
When the steaming dish hit the table, Curze went silent.
A glob of sticky, yellow-brown sludge ladled over white rice, throwing off an aggressive bouquet of mixed spices.
The presentation. The color. The texture.
It was extremely difficult not to associate it with certain unfortunate things deposited in sewers.
Curze furrowed his brow. His whole face said no.
"Navy curry — dig in!" Kaelen, supremely confident, heaped a full plate in front of him. "Naval specialty. Has to be tasted. Back on ancient Terra, this stuff was the top-tier ration in every nation's fleet. The sailors swore by it."
Curze stared at the plate for several seconds. In the end, his stomach won.
With visible reluctance, he picked up the metal spoon, scooped a small portion of the brown paste, and brought it to his mouth.
Spice. Richness. The fatty depth of meat and the sweetness of vegetables detonated across his tongue. He swallowed, and warmth spread out from his stomach.
Curze froze.
This hot, sloppy stuff was damnably good. A thousand times better than dried duct rat. Ten thousand times.
He stopped hesitating and started shoveling, table manners forgotten.
"How is it, brother?"
Horus, slicing a steak on his own plate, asked with a booming laugh.
"Surprisingly pleasant." Curze swallowed, picked up a napkin, and dabbed at his mouth. "Much like the future I just foresaw for a certain someone."
The air at the table shifted.
"A certain someone?" Sanguinius set down his goblet, his eyes locking onto Curze.
"That Lion fellow."
The Lord of the Night licked the last of the curry sauce off his plate and smacked his lips, reluctant to let the taste go.
"He's awake. He's just arrived on a planet called Camarth."
(Next: the Battle of Baal.)
➤ Next: The Battle for Baal (1)
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