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Have you heard of the Bellus Trojhus? It is a conflict from a time of far
off antiquity, but I believe we are the result of our sire’s inspiration upon
hearing the tale of the Equus Trojhus that occurred during that time. The
invading Greikans had laid siege against the walls of Trojha, the last
fortified city in an otherwise conquered territory. The city was eventually
taken when the Greikans found an outcast Trojhan willing to betray his people
and told the Griekans how to bring about the fall of Trojha. A large wooden
horse was left outside the gates of the city along with a willing Greikan
sacrifice. The sacrifice told the Trojhans that he had in actuality escaped
death as an offering, and the horse was left as a gift and concession of
superiority. The Trojhans took the horse and sacrifice into the city to win
favor with their gods, despite warnings from their priests that this sacrifice
and the horse were a ruse. In the middle of the night, the Greikan soldiers
that had hidden inside the hollow wooden statue killed the sentries and opened
the gates of the city from the inside, allowing the rest of the Greikans to
burn and pillage the city…
+++
The hallway was empty. Or, it
seemed empty. In actuality, it was suffused with existence, space for matter to
exist in and time for matter to change through. Instant by instant the matter
in the hallway changed, imperceptible to the beings occupying the space.
Sometimes it would combine and concentrate, sometimes it would divide and
separate. On the whole, the matter separated more than concentrated. This
phenomenon was not specific to the hallway, it was merely a property of the
universe in which the space of the hallway existed: a gradual but constant
breakdown, a slow but inexorable increase in random events.
A predator’s eyes scanned the
hallway, identifying macro-scale features. Door, far side, retina and
gene-print locked. On the walls, passive and active hyperspectral and
matter-density scanners. In the floor and ceiling, grav-traps, infrawave
destabilizers, and electromagnetic pulsers. A well-guarded hallway, then.
Still, no matter to pass through unharmed. The predator advanced. Nine other
predators advanced with the first, and a smaller figure behind them. The
scanners registered nothing out of place and no security measures or alarms
were activated. After all, the eleven bodies moving through the hallway were
registered with the security systems as sanctorus,
and therefore not to be harmed.
The ten predators, wearing dark
power armor subtly patterned with coiling layers of scales, reached the door at
the other end of the hallway, unlocked it, and passed into the chamber on the
other side. The lead, Henephas, crossed to the control station on the far side and
put his armored hand on the keypad, typing runes too quickly to read. A
sequence started, devised long after now, implemented long before. Henephas
thought about that fact. He tried not to let it boggle him, to remain focused
on the tasks still to be accomplished. Horus
does not win, Terra does not fall. Our father’s vision is noble but flawed. For
humanity to endure, his will to succeed and his influence on the species must
be excised. Henephas and his brothers had been encouraged, during their
training so very, very long ago, to think. They were encouraged to discuss the
philosophies underlying the conflicts in which they engaged, and those even
grander still, those pertaining to the continued survival of a species they had
in many ways left behind. You will be the
hand of fate, the failsafe mechanism by which our species ensures its survival.
Henephas subtly shifted to regard
the smaller figure in the midst of his brothers. “You are certain no trap
awaits us?” he asked it in clipped, coded tones. The red-robed adept nodded
once, less augmented than most of her kind, but still obviously belonging to
the mysterious tech priesthood.
“Yes, we are clear to the
Throne,” Muin warbled, her vocal augmitters making her sound almost birdlike. Every
acoustic utterance was laced with coding frequencies that Henephas knew even he
likely did not have all of the cyphers for. Muin docked one of her silvery
tentacles with a control terminal on the other side of the hallway. “Prepare
for spatial entanglement transfer,” she warbled again. With this, Henephas
nodded and entered the last rune sequence. A portal opened on one wall of the
chamber. The technology for the portal had come from a dead world, plundered
while its inhabitants slept. So, too, from this dead world had come the
technology to send Henephas and his squad where and when they were needed.
Despite the sidereal start of the Great Crusade occurring only two centuries
ago, Henephas and his brothers had trained for this mission for more than twice
that time. Henephas used to wonder how his primarchs had been so sure and so
insightful into the events that swirled around them all.
Henephas signaled his brothers
and Muin to switch to complete emission silence. He switched on the
miniaturized overlapping stealth fields and stepped through the portal. What
lay on the other side dazzled Henephas, if only for a moment. The dozen milling
tech-priests and adepts were also dazzled for a moment, and ten silenced needle
rifles cut them down.
Henephas took a moment to regard
the space they had entered. An immense chamber, brilliant and humming with
energy. Grand, golden doors on one side of the chamber, their frames sparking
with barely-restrained power, dominated the space. Above the doors an immense,
shining throne was surrounded by arcane machinery that crackled and arced. The
whole chamber spoke of vision, destiny, and patience. Henephas admired its
creator even more than he already did, and felt a mournful ache seep into him
at the thought of what he and his brothers must do.
Atop the throne, a slight,
solitary figure with closed eyes was spasming and convulsing. Henephas knew
that containing and directing the power meant for the throne’s creator must be
killing the Emperor’s right hand, but was impressed that the man was still
holding on. Above him, hundreds of coffin-like enclosures, filled with
screaming figures. Conduit attached to the coffins all siphoned to the
machinery surrounding the throne, crackling with power. Henephas momentarily
regarded the immense golden doors again. He could feel a roiling wave of malevolence
crashing over and over against the other side, and gave a slight shiver of
hesitation.
“Henephas, we continue on
mission,” hissed Ehk’fis. With a breath, Henephas turned from the doors and
approached the throne, scanning for threats. The golden praetorians were not in
evidence, no doubt occupied elsewhere just as planned, but there were always
unknowns. Perhaps some of Dorn’s plank-stiff dullards would have enough wit to
come running when they realized the chamber was unguarded, but Henephas doubted
it. Calling any of the Emperor’s companions “praetorians” was laughable anyway.
The twentieth knew what awaited mankind and its leader in the dark. As much as
the Emperor appeared to be an omnipotent, omniscient god, he needed a
protector, but there were none capable.
And so, with no peers to check
the Emperor’s actions, other powers would corrupt humanity, the Emperor’s
well-intentioned but flawed guidance and risky plan their conduit. So Henephas
believed, not only because his primarchs had explained it, but because he
observed it to be true. He extrapolated from events of the past, and events in
motion now, and the events he had witnessed in his past, but now in another
future. That was his gift, passed on from his gene-fathers: the long view. The
collation and distillation of a myriad of data and patterns into projections of
likelihood. When outcomes were unfavorable, he and his brothers changed their
likelihood, forged a different future. None were their masters, not even fate.
The ten Astartes reached the top
of the giant mechanism, at the peak of which was the throne. Henephas nodded to
Muin, who began to direct Henephas and his brothers to inspect different
devices. They unpacked their specialized tools and began to scan and remove
panels from various arcane machineries. Henephas did not know what they were
looking for, but he trusted that Muin did. She had served both Koriel Zeth and
Arkhan Land on Mars and had been close with both Kelbor-Hal and Zagreus Kane,
and when the time had come, Henephas and his squad had recovered her from the
war on the red planet and spirited her away for this very mission. She knew
more about the mechanisms and function of this chamber than anyone who was not
the chamber’s creator. Muin knew, and had conveyed to Henephas, the centuries
it had taken to conceive of, design, source the materials for, build, and
finally complete this chamber. She had conveyed the grandness of what it
represented, and the risk that came with it. It was the singular achievement of
a singular being. The plan had been compromised by one of that being’s
precocious gene-sons, but it could be set right again, once the civil war
fostered by another gene-son was dealt with.
Henephas knew, and had conveyed
to Muin, why the chamber had to be sabotaged beyond repair. She had accepted it
without hesitation, but Henephas could swear he had caught her weeping, or what
he suspected was her equivalent of weeping, for the loss it would mean. You will be the hand of fate, the failsafe
mechanism by which our species ensures its survival.
The last sigilite was still
writhing upon the throne after the fifteen-minute marker passed since starting
their inspection. Their projected time window was up. “Adept Muin, status?
Where are the most viable points of sabotage?” Henephas asked.
Muin responded in a warble
Henephas could tell was virtually rapture. “Prime Henephas, I see no way in
which we can sabotage this mechanism without revealing that we have done so.
The tech-priesthood will know. This machine may be unique, but a being of the
Emperor’s patience and intellect will surely be able to repair it, or have his thralls
repair it, if there is obvious damage. And we do not have the means to destroy
it entirely.” Henephas frowned inside his helmet, but Muin was not finished.
Her warble took on a tinge of sadness. “I have, however, detected a flaw.” She
beckoned him to her side, and she pointed to a mechanism inside a panel that
had been removed. “This psionic transducer is providing a billionth of a
percent too much power to the receptor coil. The hysteresis of this process is changing
the material properties of the receptor coil and reducing its conduction capacity.
The entire mechanism will require power at an increasing rate, eventually
reaching an asymptote,” she explained. When none of the Astartes responded, she
clarified. “At some point, the wear on the coil will mean that this mechanism,”
she gestured to the chamber, “will at some point require more energy to
function than exists in the universe. Before that, it will require far more…
sacrifices,” she said, looking up at the writhing figures in the coffins on the
ceiling, “than the Imperium can provide.”
The Astartes responded with
silence and stillness. “Eventually,” she finished.
Henephas’ frown stayed in place.
Nkhijjir voiced the question. “How long is eventually, Muin?”
“At its current rate, millennia.
Perhaps eight, perhaps twelve.”
“That is…” Henephas trailed off.
Possibilities spread before his mind’s eye. The Sigilite would clearly not
survive the ordeal for much longer. Wherever the Emperor was, he would need to
return before long to continue to power and direct the mechanism, which now,
Henephas suspected, only existed to keep the immense golden doors shut, and the
wave of destruction on the other side out. The Emperor was clearly the only one
capable of sustaining the power and direction of the mechanism for any
significant length of time. Others of Henephas’ legion had suspected that this
was the reason the Emperor had quit the expansion of the very empire he had
started, and this had clearly occupied nearly all of the Emperor’s attention,
only the most dire of events able to pull him away. If the device was left
untouched, even the Emperor would be unable to enact his will on his empire,
such would the energy required be, and mankind’s great champion would necessarily
leave it to others. Other who would not share his vision and will, not
entirely. It had already begun, the burgeoning Administratum taking on the
management of the empire. If it continued, the Emperor’s influence would
continue to diminish, leaving a vacuum others could fill, Henephas thought. One
his primarchs’ influence could fill.
“That is perfect, Adept Muin.
Leave it,” Henephas told her.
“Henephas, the Emperor designed
and built this place. We know he will be unable to repair it in the state he
will be in after fighting the Warmaster. But he will be able to find this flaw,
and his praetorians and chosen tech-adepts will then repair it,” Gregin mused.
“He will not find what Muin has
discovered,” Henephas said. The other Astartes shifted to regard Muin as
Henephas turned his armored head to look at her, encouraging her to voice the
idea that had rooted itself in his head and which he knew she shared.
“He designed this and he has not
fixed it thus far,” she explained. “Either the Emperor missed it, or it simply
could not be made better. His guardians are intelligent but they have no
knowledge of such arcana. And his thralls and menials are not much better. They
may have helped him build this place,” she said, opening her arms to gesture
around the chamber, “but they have no great insight into its workings. Most of
my kind are so hidebound in their traditions that they would not dare even make
an attempt. At least, not until it is too late.”
Henephas could hear the cognition
and acceptance of this idea in his brothers’ silence and lack of movement. But
he was surprised when Muin turned to him.
“My time in the forges of Koriel
Zeth and my studies with Arkhan Land have given me a great deal of insight into
this device,” she said hesitantly. “I am quite familiar with psionic
transduction and the gravitic manipulation arcana that Land found in the
Librarius Omnis on Mars. I believe replacing the coil with a reciprocating
gravitic buffer would bring the power transferred to within the material’s
regenerative tolerances.” Muin looked up at Henephas. “I…” she hesitated again,
“I believe I could fix this.”
Henephas moved only after a
moment, reacting far more slowly than his own Astartes physiology allowed. Even
as he finally acted, he marveled at his own hesitation. Perhaps it could be
done. Perhaps the Imperium could be made to endure.
Henephas kneeled down before
Muin. She began to tremble, but he put his hands on her shoulders. Muin gave a
little sigh, and stood still. “I believe I can fix this,” she told Henephas
again. “I may be the only one in the entire Imperium, but I believe I can save
the Emperor’s vision for humanity.” She made the noises Henephas attributed to
weeping, and he put a hand on her head.
And snapped her neck.
Muin’s corpse collapsed to the floor.
The other Astartes looked at Henephas. “Effrit Cell
1221-Rho-Gamma-Nu-Rho-Kappa, primary mission objective Hades achieved. Mission parameter Sila still in effect. Deploy demolition charges around the gate
doors and prepare for contact.” The assembled strike team all nodded and set
about their tasks. Once they were finished, they all simply waited for their
stealth fields to burn out.
The flaw in the throne room
mechanism quietly exerted itself as Custodes and Imperial Fists breached the
chamber and engaged and brought down Henephas and his operatives. It continued
to grow worse, imperceptably slowly, as the last of the demolition charges set
around the gate to the Webway were defused with seconds left to spare. It went
undiscovered as the Emperor’s broken body was returned to the throne and
Malcador’s corpse removed. It would remain undiscovered for nearly ten
millennia, and by the time it was discovered, it would be beyond the power of
the Imperium to repair, and require an agreement to a dark bargain…
+++
Most would point to the deceit of the hollow wooden horse filled with
soldiers as the mechanism that allowed the Greikans to sack Trojha. The more
astute might point to the betrayal of the Trojhans by one of their own as the
primary reason for the death of the city. But what few understand is that
neither of these things was the true instrument of Trojha’s demise. The
Greikans used the very pride and self-importance of the Trojhans against
themselves. They convinced the Trojhans they had won, and to take the very seed
of their demise unto their hearth as a mark of victory, and it killed them
without compunction or mercy. I believe even our sire may have missed that
particular lesson.
I told you in the beginning that this tale is called the Equus Trojhus.
I call it the Conceit of Trojha.
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