When the war broke out, Ahriman had been stationed within the Silver Bastion, waiting for a psychic transmission from his primarch, Magnus.
Yet even after more than half of Prospero had been swallowed by war, the First Captain still had not received a single new order.
Why was there still no word from the primarch?
Had he already been killed?
Or had he succeeded—had the ritual worked, carrying him all the way to Holy Terra?
As Ahriman wrestled with those questions, even worse news arrived.
They had been completely cut off from the main battlefield. Tizca, the City of Light, had been sealed beneath a psychic barrier, and every route in or out had been locked down by the invaders.
The forces holding the Silver Bastion were now fighting alone.
Worse still, Ahriman had lost contact not only with his primarch, but with the rest of the legion's command structure as well. Counting the captains who had come with him, he had just nine hundred and ninety-nine men left under his authority.
Meanwhile, both the Sixteenth and the Eighth Legions had turned their attention toward the Bastion, dispatching large forces to rip out this fortress before it could threaten their fleet.
And so a savage siege began—no less brutal than the fighting in Tizca itself.
It raged from day into night, and on into the next morning. By then, both sides had fought so hard and so long that they no longer had any idea what was happening elsewhere.
In the end, after losing nine hundred men, Ahriman's force had no choice but to withdraw according to the final contingency plan.
According to Magnus's instructions, they could still use a ritual array to teleport to a relay point within the Tower of Light, and from there continue on toward Holy Terra.
Though Ahriman and the others were furious at being forced into retreat, they could only abandon the Silver Bastion—now reduced to ruins—to the invaders.
On the other side, the Night Lords and the Sons of Horus, having received a message from their comrades, halted their assault almost immediately.
But by the time they tried to negotiate surrender with Ahriman's remaining force, the sorcerers were already gone.
And fast.
All that remained behind were crippled rearguards, left to delay pursuit.
"My lord Ahriman... what do we do now?" one of the Thousand Sons asked, looking out over the ruins of Tizca with naked grief.
Their home. Everything they had cherished. How had it all ended like this?
The ninety-nine survivors of that horrific defensive battle were all extraordinary psykers—masters of the warp, seasoned warriors, capable commanders.
With their primarch missing and the fate of their homeworld uncertain, they were very likely all that remained of the Thousand Sons.
And that meant they would have to shoulder the burden of rebuilding the legion.
Ahriman looked over the defeated, grieving warriors before him, and his own heart twisted.
But he was their commander. No matter how much it hurt, he had to keep it buried.
Then he thought of the brothers who had willingly stayed behind to die covering their retreat, and the grief and fury inside him deepened further.
He could not help but begin to wonder whether Magnus's decisions had ever truly been the right ones.
He had foreseen what was to come—so why had he still hesitated? Why had he vacillated and fumbled until everything ended like this?
He was impossible to understand.
"Let's move," Ahriman said at last, doing what little he could to steady the men. "We reach the extraction point first. Then we decide what comes next."
When the sun rose once more over Prospero, bathing the world in light again, the sounds of war had already begun to fade.
From the direction of Tizca, all noise had ceased.
That meant the war was over—and very likely, the victors were the invaders.
After all, the Thousand Sons could still see the enemy warships hanging overhead with their own eyes, and more and more transports were descending from orbit.
They could barely believe it.
Their battle-brothers... their primarch... could not really have lost so completely, could they?
Wrapped in the defeated, broken mood of beaten dogs, the survivors finally reached a hidden stronghold.
Inside were large stores of supplies, along with materials and tools needed for major warp-work.
After a brief period of recovery, the group fractured into bitter disagreement.
The loyalists insisted they must carry out the mission Magnus had left behind before the battle: use the ritual array to teleport to the Tower of Light, and from there pass through the warp to Holy Terra.
This was the primarch's strategy. His wisdom. How could they betray it?
Another faction argued the exact opposite.
The war had already gone this far. There was no point continuing. They should surrender now.
Magnus had almost certainly surrendered already. To keep fighting now would only create more pointless deaths.
What was the point?
Better to surrender while they still could. If they kept resisting, what if they gave the enemy an excuse to exterminate all of Prospero?
There was even a third faction—one that wanted to go even further.
Why not modify the ritual array into a cataclysmic weapon and take the enemy with them?
So you've occupied Tizca and now you want to defile our light too? Then all of you can die with us.
If ninety-nine psychic masters offered up their lives and souls as sacrifice, they could absolutely turn ruined, defenseless Tizca into the center of an annihilating blast.
Mutual destruction, however terrible, was still preferable to being crushed one-sidedly.
As the Thousand Sons descended into furious argument, Ahriman did not immediately intervene.
Instead, he found himself thinking about a different possibility.
He felt—somehow—that things had not yet truly passed the point of no return.
There had to be some way to salvage this.
Especially when his eyes fell on several of his brothers, their armor split open to reveal warped flesh bulging through the cracks, something seized his heart.
Father... all he had wanted was to save his primarch-brothers who suffered the same torment, and their legions, and their sons.
His intentions had been good.
"Lord Ahriman! Please make the decision!"
"We'll support whatever you choose!"
"Yes, Lord Ahriman! Primarch Magnus commanded that we follow you!"
In the end, all three factions—despite their wildly different conclusions—placed the final decision in Ahriman's hands.
And truly, only Ahriman could have held them together at all. Whether by skill or by standing, only he could command the obedience of the rest.
"I..." Ahriman had only just opened his mouth to speak when the world before his eyes froze as though seized by a sudden killing frost.
The golden sun turned blue.
Then the camp at his feet, and the endless desert all around them, were washed over by the same blue filter.
Warp intrusion?!
Ahriman's experience let him identify it immediately.
His first thought was that the pursuers had moved impossibly quickly. His second was a question:
Did the Sixteenth or the Eighth truly have a librarian so far superior to him?
Even if one of their primarchs had come in person, they should not have been able to pin him this easily.
"Do not be afraid, Ahriman. Are you not confused? Are you not grieving? Do you not feel powerless? Do you not wish to change all of this?"
A voice—one that seemed to echo directly from the depths of his soul—rose softly within his mind.
It carried a strange power, something capable of smoothing every wrinkle away, whether of emotion or of a restless spirit.
The instant Ahriman heard that familiar, wisdom-laden voice, the tension in his muscles and the turmoil in his thoughts dissolved.
Because he knew who had come.
The sage from deep within the warp.
Though Ahriman had only interacted with that being once before, he had learned a vast amount from it.
To be blunt, a single audience with that sage was worth nine years—perhaps ninety-nine years—of study beneath his primarch.
"Wise one... why are you here?" Ahriman asked.
Then he realized that though he could still speak, his body would not move.
In other words, his soul had been drawn free, and he was now conversing with that warp-sage across dimensions.
As for the medium...
Ahriman's thoughts immediately turned to the ritual array Magnus had prepared in advance. It connected to the ceremonial chamber hidden in the depths of the Tower of Light—and that chamber itself connected to the warp.
That had to be how the sage's will had passed down through layer after layer to appear here.
Of course, the transmission likely reduced the quality of the sage's psychic projection, but for the sake of simple conversation, it was more than enough.
And conversation—guidance—was exactly what Ahriman needed.
Not overwhelming psychic force.
What he needed was a way to save the legion.
"Child adrift in confusion," the sage said gently, "I felt your sorrow. That is why I came."
"You once asked me what lay at the end of knowledge. You also asked how the legion's predicament might be solved. But do you not think such questions are too profound? Too vast to answer in so little time?"
"You, your legion, your battle-brothers—your immediate problem is the flesh-change."
"Your primarch has surrendered. Your battle-brothers will soon be dragged before judgment. And once the truth of the legion's mutations is laid bare... what do you think will happen?"
"I believe," the voice said softly, "that you already know."
Ahriman fell silent.
But at the same time, he thought hard—and found no answer.
Their legion. Their future. Their primarch.
What were they supposed to do?
"I can give you the answer," the sage said. "I can help you as well."
"But... it will require a small price."
"What price?" Ahriman asked, suddenly wary.
"Sacrifice."
The sage's voice remained light and calm.
"Ahriman, tell me this—would you be willing to sacrifice yourself for the legion?"
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