Dan Abnett - The Horus Heresy - Horus Rising

Naud's house was a treasure trove of art, some of it mystifyingly alien to Loken's comprehension. The art was elegantly displayed in lit alcoves and on free-standing plinths with their own shimmering field protection. He understood some of it. Portraits and busts, paintings and light sculptures, pictures of interex nobles and their families, studies of animals or wildflowers, mountain scenes, elaborate and ingenious models of unnamed worlds opened in mechanical cross-section like the layers of an onion.

In one lower hallway in the eastern wing of the house, Loken came upon an artwork that especially arrested him. It was a book, an old book, large, rumpled, illuminated, and held within its own box field. The lurid woodcut illuminations caught his eye first, the images of devils and spectres, angels and cherubs. Then he saw it was written in the old text of Terra, the language and form that had survived from prehistory to The Chronicles of Ursh that lay, still unfinished, in his arming chamber. He peered at it. A wave of his hand across the field's static charge turned the pages. He turned them right back to the front and read the tide page in its bold woodblock.

A Marvelous Historie of Eevil; Being a warninge to Man Kind on the Abuses ofSorcerie and the Seduction of the Daemon.

That has taken your eye, has it?'

Loken rose and turned. A royal officer of the interex stood nearby, watching him. Loken knew the man, one of Naud's subordinate commanders, by the name of Mithras Tull. What he didn't know was how Tull had managed to come up on him wifhout Loken noticing.

'It is a curious thing, commander.’ he said.

Tull nodded and smiled. A gleve, his weighted spear was leant against a pillar behind him, and he had removed his visor to reveal his pleasant, honest face. A likeness.’ he said.

A what?'

'Forgive me, that is the word we have come to use to refer to things that are old enough to display our common heritage. A likeness. That book means as much to you as it does to us, I'm sure.'

'It is curious, certainly.’ Loken admitted. He unclasped his helm and removed it, out of politeness. 'Is there a problem, commander?'

Tull made a dismissive gesture. 'No, not at all. My duties are akin to yours tonight, captain. Security. I'm in charge of the house patrols.’

Loken nodded. He gestured back at the ancient book on display. 'So tell me about this piece. If you've the time?'

'It's a quiet night.’ Tull smiled again. He came forward, and brushed the field with his metal-sleeved fingers to flip the pages. 'My lord Jephta adores this book. It was composed during the early years of our history, before the interex was properly founded, during our outwards expansion from Terra. Very few copies remain. A treatise against the practice of sorcery.’

'Naud adores it?' Loken asked.

'As a... what was your word again? A curiosity?' There was something strange about Tull's voice, and Loken finally realised what it was. This was die first conversation he'd had with a representative of die interex without meturge players producing the aria in the background. 'It's such a woe-begotten, dark age piece.’ Tull continued. 'So doomy and apocalyptic. Imagine, captain... men of Terra, voyaging out into the stars, equipped with great and wonderful technologies, and fearing the dark so much they have to compose treatises on daemons.’

'Daemons?'

'Indeed. This warns against witches, gross practices, familiars, and the arts by which a man might transform into a daemon and prey upon his own kind.’

Some became daemons and turned upon their own.

'So... you regard it as a joke? An odd throwback to unenlightened days?'

Tull shrugged. 'Not a joke, captain. Just an old-fashioned, alarmist approach. The interex is a mature society. We understand the threat of Kaos well enough, and set it in its place.'

'Chaos?'

Tull frowned. 'Yes, captain. Kaos. You say the word like you've never heard it before.’

'I know the word. You say it like it has a specific connotation.’

'Well, of course it has.’ Tull said. 'No star-faring race in the cosmos can operate without understanding the nature of Kaos. We thank the eldar for teaching us the rudiments of it, but we would have recognised it soon enough without their help. Surely, one can't use the Immaterium for any length of time without coming to terms with Kaos as a...' his voice trailed off. 'Great and holy heavens! You don't know, do you?'

'Don't know what?' Loken snapped.

Tull began to laugh, but it wasn't mocking. 'All this time, we've been pussy-footing around you and your great Warmaster, fearing the worst.

Loken took a step forward. 'Commander.’ he said, 'I will own up to ignorance and embrace illumination, but I will not be laughed at.’

'Forgive me.’

Tell me why I should. Illuminate me.’ Tull stopped laughing and stared into Loken's face. His blue eyes were terribly cold and hard. 'Kaos is the damnation of all mankind, Loken. Kaos will outlive us and dance on our ashes. All we can do, all we can strive for, is to recognise its menace and keep it at bay, for as long as we persist.’ 'Not enough.’ said Loken.

Tull shook his head sadly. We were so wrong.’ he said.

'About what?'

'About you. About the Imperium. I must go to Naud at once and explain this to him. If only the substance of this had come out earlier...'

'Explain it to me first. Now. Here.’

Tull gazed at Loken for a long, silent moment, as if judging his options. Finally, he shrugged and said, 'Kaos is a primal force of the cosmos. It resides within the Immaterium... what you call the warp. It is a source of the most malevolent and complete corruption and evil. It is the greatest enemy of mankind - both interex and Imperial, I mean - because it destroys from within, like a canker. It is insidious. It is not like a hostile alien form to be defeated or expunged. It spreads like a disease. It is at the root of all sorcery and magic. It is...'

He hesitated and looked at Loken with a pained expression. 'It is the reason we have kept you at arm's length. You have to understand that when we first made contact, we were exhilarated, overjoyed. At last. At last! Contact with our lost kin, contact with Terra, after so many generations. It was a dream we had all cherished, but we knew we had to be careful. In the ages since we last had contact with Terra, things might have changed. An age of strife and damnation had passed. There was no guarantee that the men, who looked like men, and claimed to come from Terra in the name of a new Ter-ran Emperor, might not be agents of Kaos in seemly guise. There was no guarantee that while the men of the interex remained pure, the men of Terra might have become polluted and transformed by the ways of Kaos.’

"We are not-'

'Let me finish, Loken. Kaos, when it manifests, is brutal, rapacious, warlike. It is a force of unquenchable destruction. So the eldar have taught us, and the kine-brach, and so the pure men of the interex have stood to

check Kaos wherever it rears its warlike visage. Tell me, captain, how warlike do you appear? Vast and bulky, bred for battle, driven to destroy, led by a man you happily title Warmaster? War master? What manner of rank is that? Not Emperor, not commander, not general, but Warmaster. The bluntness of the term reeks of Kaos. We want to embrace you, yearn to embrace you, to join with you, to stand shoulder to shoulder with you, but we fear you, Loken. You resemble the enemy we have been raised from birth to anticipate. The all-conquering, unrelenting daemon of Kaos-war. The bloody-handed god of annihilation.'

'That is not us,' said Loken, aghast.

Tull nodded eagerly. 'I know it. I see it now. Truly. We have made a mistake in our delays. There is no taint in you. There is only the most surprising innocence.'