Chapter 144 - Interrogating the Daemonhost
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On the primarch's flagship, the Macragge's Honour.
Deximus Felix, one of the Four Champions of the New Age as named by Guilliman, a Primaris Space Marine, came aboard with his Victrix Guard in tow.
Felix had urgent business with his Gene-Sire.
The path to that audience was neither smooth nor pleasant.
He had a run-in with Cato Sicarius at the door to the primarch's office.
Not that they disliked each other. It was simply that Sicarius was hungry for a fair contest with this Champion. Who could blame them? They were Astartes, the most violent weapons the Imperium had ever forged, and they chased glory the way other men chased breath. Beyond that, their Ultramarines Gene-Sire had returned, and as his sons, they wanted to draw the primarch's eye, earn his trust, be given something worth carrying.
A silent rivalry. Nothing spoken. Nothing resolved.
In the end, Sicarius let Felix through.
The primarch's private quarters were quieter than Felix had expected. Guilliman sat behind an enormous desk scaled to his frame, a roll of parchment in hand, two visitors standing at his side.
Felix's gaze went to the Astartes first. Black power armor. Ancient Legion heraldry. The spread-winged aquila on the breastplate.
A Dark Angels veteran, Terran-born. A living fossil who had seen the Imperium rise and shatter with his own eyes.
Felix's heart lurched.
He had been born ten thousand years ago as well, but in terms of years actually served, he was nowhere close to this old-timer. Not even in the same conversation.
Then he saw the other one.
A mortal. Clean standard-issue uniform, no ornamentation, no rank insignia worth noting. He stood beside the Gene-Sire, murmuring something in a low voice.
Guilliman had tilted his head to listen. The corner of his mouth twitched, the relaxed kind, the kind that only appeared when two people were talking as equals.
A mortal. Getting that from the iron-fisted ruler of the Five Hundred Worlds.
Felix filed the confusion away, dropped to one knee, and pressed his fist to his chest.
"My lord."
Guilliman looked up. When he saw who it was, the smile deepened.
"I am pleased you have come, my son." The primarch's voice was gentle, but it carried weight. "I would be even more pleased if you were simply staying in Alvaro, rather than traveling here with some particular purpose in mind."
Meaning beneath the words. Felix kept his head down and answered it directly.
"I have come to dissuade you from doing something you should not do, my liege."
A beat of silence fell over the chamber. Guilliman set the parchment down, folded his hands on the desk, and regarded his son without expression.
Felix drew a breath and let it all out at once.
The daemonhost. The capture operation he had personally led. The state of that inquisitor after the transformation, what it had looked like, what it had become. And his fear, plainly stated, of the primarch personally interrogating such a thing.
"That daemon was captured by my squad," Felix said, his voice low and deliberate. "I witnessed its methods from start to finish. It is not an ordinary heretic. Before we took it, it was an inquisitor. For you to interrogate it personally — the risk is too great."
A mild voice answered him before the silence could settle.
"Perhaps from your perspective, this carries considerable risk." The speaker was, of all people, the mortal. "But for the Lord of Ultramar, it is hardly a factor."
Felix's brow tightened.
He stood, turned toward the mortal, and opened his mouth.
Guilliman's hand came up.
"Allow me to introduce him, my son. This is Kaelen."
Kaelen.
The name went off in Felix's mind like a bolt-round.
Kaelen.
That Kaelen?
The one who had brought back three Gene-Sires? Who had made the Emperor, silent on the Golden Throne for ten thousand years, speak again?
The one personally granted the rank of General by the Lord Regent. A nominal title, technically. But who in the entire Imperium didn't know the name? Who hadn't heard what this mortal had done? The Ecclesiarchy's missionaries had carried the stories to every parish in the galaxy: a mortal with no supernatural ability, no enhanced body, no psychic gift, relying on nerve and cunning and a devotion to the Emperor that bordered on obsession (the exact nature of which remained open to debate), had accomplished what entire Astartes Chapters could not even approach.
The Solar Lord Macharius had reconquered Imperial worlds that had strayed from compliance.
This man had conquered despair itself.
And now he was standing right here, in a plain military uniform, the corner of his mouth lifted, the same man Felix had glanced over thirty seconds ago like a piece of furniture.
Cold sweat hit Felix all at once.
"Forgive me, my lord." The Champion bent at the waist, lower than the knee he'd just been on. "I did not recognize you."
"Nothing to apologize for." Kaelen waved a hand, still smiling. "I rarely appear in public. It's completely normal not to know my face. And besides — you had urgent business to report. No one in that situation is going to spare a second look at an ordinary mortal standing in the corner."
It was said with humor. Felix could not laugh.
He simply bent lower and held the silence.
"Let's return to what we were discussing."
Kaelen steered the conversation back. The smile stayed. The warmth in his voice quietly pulled back.
"Felix. Do you believe that interrogating the daemonhost is the wrong approach?"
"Yes, my lord." Felix breathed in hard and forced his pulse to settle. "It is dangerous. We all know what the Warp is. We have all seen what daemons can do. They find the cracks in a person's mind, and then they pour in a poison that is half-lies, half-truth — and they keep pouring until the man breaks. You say it cannot affect a primarch. But that is precisely the daemon's greatest skill: making you certain you are immune."
Silence again.
Then Guilliman stood.
The primarch's frame swallowed the light. Felix found himself standing entirely in shadow.
"Daemons are not a monolith." Guilliman crossed to him, voice low and steady, like a sound that came from somewhere deep underground rather than from a throat.
"The factional strife within their ranks makes our Imperium's internal struggles look tame by comparison. Every Power despises the others. They antagonize each other, deceive each other, set traps for each other without end. That hatred is older than anything they feel toward humanity. It goes far deeper."
Felix went still.
This lay beyond what he had been taught. He had always understood Chaos as a single enemy, unified, evil, coordinated against mankind.
But the primarch was telling him something different. That what called itself Chaos was not a wall. It was a pit of vipers, and they were always eating each other first.
The corners of Guilliman's mouth curved upward. The smile that appeared was not a commander's smile.
It was a father's.
"Your concern," he said, "means a great deal to me."
Felix looked up into those demigod eyes. Something locked in his throat.
He had failed. The whole purpose of this visit, gone. Not because of a command. Not because of rank or authority. But because he looked at his father's face and saw that the decision had already been made, and it had been made clearly.
"You have already decided," Felix said quietly. It was not quite a question.
"I have." Guilliman's hand settled on his shoulder plate. "But I am very glad you came. What you felt was right to feel, my son. Never stop worrying, that is what gives me the right reminder when I need one most."
➤ Next: Plague of the God, But with a Great Angel Component
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