V3 Chapter 6: I Cannot See Your Fate
The capital of Tarentus had been built into the mountainside.
From high above it was a vast city. Its general layout bore some resemblance to Macragge City: outer residential districts, administrative towers, memorial plazas, orbital transit nodes, and military zones all arranged according to Ultramar standards.
The terrain was the only difference.
A mountain range ran through the city's back, forcing its designers to compress the entire capital into a hexagonal shape. Six main thoroughfares extended outward from the central administrative district, each terminating at a fortified gate.
Right now, the city had fallen into complete chaos.
The central administrative district, where the governor's palace stood, had become the eye of the storm. The outer zones still had local defence forces and reconstruction committee remnants exchanging fire, but the inner halls had already fallen to the enemy.
Body parts were scattered through the governor's palace's halls and corridors.
Tall figures in warped power armour moved through it, venting themselves on the remains. Their armour was hung with leather, metal strips, and spikes, and a mortal who looked upon them directly risked their heart simply stopping from the shock of what they were seeing.
Discordant music echoed through the darkened halls.
It had no stable rhythm and no clear melody. Noise Marines levelled their weapons at walls, corpses, stone columns, and those still struggling, using everything in sight to produce what they considered perfect art.
Elaborate decorations had become something nauseating.
The columns that had once greeted dignitaries were smeared with filth. Ultramar's blue and white banners had been torn apart, the shreds wound around bones. The reliefs commemorating Guilliman had been carved with new marks.
Two figures tangled together and writhing stood behind Lucius.
They consumed each other's flesh in something close to the purest and most absolute form of desire—beyond everything, only the soul remaining. They could no longer reasonably be called human. What remained was distorted meat and ecstatic sound.
"What if they do not come?"
One of the things raised its face and asked in a wet, hoarse voice.
Lucius did not turn.
He was working with his blade.
A stroke, a withdrawal, another stroke.
The planetary governor had been fixed to a metal frame in front of him. The ruler who had so recently been sending requests for aid to Macragge could now only make sounds of anguish.
His flesh was being separated from him with extraordinary precision.
Every time Lucius's blade descended, it took with it a sliver of tissue so thin it was nearly transparent. The governor's body had not yet lost its life. He had not even been permitted the relief of falling.
His nerves had been preserved.
His throat had been preserved.
Lucius needed those sounds.
The desperate howling made him close his eyes, as though he were appreciating a composition that only he possessed the sensitivity to understand. Every stroke was exact. Every cut met his aesthetic requirements.
"Then we enjoy ourselves here regardless!"
Lucius suddenly called out.
"Here!"
"Across every world in Ultramar!"
His voice was lifted by the Noise Marines' music and torn apart by the governor's screaming. The traitors in the hall answered with excited roaring, more sound flooding out through damaged amplifiers.
Lucius swung his blade again with the most elegant motion at his disposal.
When the last sliver of flesh fell from the governor's chest, what remained on the metal frame was a skeleton. Lucius stepped back half a pace, appreciated his work for a moment, then flicked the blood from his blade with a clean motion.
"They will come."
He answered at last.
"Mortals always believe they can refuse their fate."
He smiled.
"But real prey always hears the sound of the blade."
Duvette stood in the Macragge orbital dockyards.
Not far ahead of him, the Ultramarines Fourth Company was assembling.
Blue power armour formed into ordered ranks. Warriors moved in silence through the boarding corridor. Weapons, ammunition, company banners, servo-skulls, and Chapter serfs moved through their separate areas, all of it proceeding with the ease of something rehearsed ten thousand times.
Duvette watched the Ultramarines file toward the ship.
He had expected Calgar to send the Second Company.
If it had been the Second, he might have found an opportunity to exchange a few words with Titus, perhaps drop a quiet word of advice, remind him to be careful, make sure that if things ever went badly with the Inquisition the man knew he had somewhere to turn, given that Duvette had two Lord Inquisitors at his back.
Unfortunate.
The Fourth Company would do.
Building rapport with the Ultramarines was never a waste of time.
The Fourth Company's captain, Ideaus, was at the head of the formation checking the tactical deployment plan. His adjutant stood to one side, projecting a city model of the Tarentus capital into the air. The hexagonal city rotated slowly, several conflict zones marked in red.
Duvette looked it over for a moment.
The Tarentus capital's layout was thoroughly standard: standard enough to feel familiar. The people of Ultramar liked to carve order into stone wherever they went, and even with a mountain range in the way, they would still produce a city whose shape could be explained by a diagram.
Heavy footsteps sounded behind him.
Duvette turned.
Varro Tigurius was coming down the corridor.
The Ultramarines Chief Librarian wore blue power armour bearing the Librarius insignia on his pauldrons. A hood covered the upper half of his face. He carried his force staff in one hand, and the metal tip struck the deck with a low resonant sound at every step.
Duvette watched him approach. His memory ran quickly through what he knew of this figure.
A formidable individual by any measure.
In terms of raw psychic ability, Tigurius ranked among the most dangerous psykers in the Imperium, with a particular gift for precognition. It had been his warning, drawn from his visions, that had given Calgar and Macragge the preparation time they needed before the First Tyrannic War.
What Duvette was less certain about was the timing.
In the original timeline, Tigurius should have foreseen Yvraine's role in Guilliman's revival and used that vision to argue Calgar's case alongside him in the council chamber. But that moment had not arrived.
Perhaps the time was not yet right.
Or perhaps the presence of a variable that should never have existed had altered the shape of what could be seen.
Tigurius stopped in front of Duvette.
The eyes beneath the hood were fixed on him.
A silence sat between them for a moment.
Duvette raised his hand in salute first.
"Chief Librarian."
Tigurius looked at him and did not return the salute immediately.
His gaze appeared to rest on Duvette's face, and also appeared to pass through it entirely, settling on something elsewhere.
"You already know the answer."
Tigurius said it without particular inflection.
Duvette's brow moved slightly.
Tigurius continued. "You are simply hoping that Lord Calgar will bear it in your place."
Duvette narrowed his eyes.
"I do not follow you."
Tigurius did not explain.
He rested his weight on the force staff and walked past Duvette, stopping where he could look down over the Fourth Company's assembly area.
"You know what it is you have brought here."
"And you know what choice it will force upon Lord Calgar."
Duvette looked at his back.
"If I already knew the answer, I would not be standing here trying to obtain his permission."
Tigurius turned his head.
"Permission."
He repeated the word.
"What you actually want is not permission. What you want is a witness. Someone who will share the weight of it. Someone who can make Ultramar believe in what you are asking."
Duvette said nothing.
Tigurius turned back to face him.
"I have looked at many of the possible outcomes of what is coming."
His voice was quiet.
"The Warp interference is severe. The images break apart. Sound distorts. Much has been obscured."
"But I have still seen the sacrifice of the loyal."
"I have heard the howling of extremity."
Something cold settled in Duvette's chest.
Tigurius continued. "That city is becoming something. Its order is being dismantled and rearranged. What it is building toward is a sacrifice."
The Fourth Company's warriors were still boarding.
The docking bay was full of mechanical sound and the bark of orders. But after Tigurius finished speaking, Duvette found that the surrounding noise felt somewhat further away.
"Then you understand why it is necessary for me to go to Tarentus," Duvette said.
"I do."
Tigurius looked at him.
"That is also why I agreed to your accompanying us."
Something shifted in Duvette's thinking.
Calgar's agreement was one thing.
Whether Tigurius was actually willing to operate alongside him was another question entirely. Hearing the Chief Librarian confirm it directly meant that at minimum he had not decided to treat Duvette as a pure complication.
Tigurius paused.
Then his voice became cooler.
"But you—I cannot see clearly."
Duvette said nothing.
"I cannot see your fate."
"Your past, your future—both are blocked from me."
Tigurius's gaze pressed down on him.
"That is dangerous."
Duvette looked back at him. "Many people have said something like that about me."
"They were only observing your actions," Tigurius said. "What I am observing is absence."
That sentence made Duvette's eyes narrow slightly.
He had always understood that his existence was wrong by this world's standards. Cawl could detect the anomaly through technical analysis and logic. The Aeldari could sense the deviation through fate and prophecy. It was not surprising that a psyker of Tigurius's tier would perceive something as well.
Tigurius withdrew his gaze.
"If I did not know your history, there would be no basis for any cooperation between us."
Duvette was quiet for a moment.
"And now?"
Tigurius did not answer immediately.
He looked toward the far end of the boarding corridor. The last warriors of the Fourth Company had entered the ship. Ideaus was waiting for the Chief Librarian's order to depart.
"I still do not trust you," Tigurius said. "But I am willing to trust the outcome."
Duvette gave a single nod. "That is enough."
Tigurius turned and walked toward the corridor. "Do not make me regret it."
Duvette followed. "I will do my best."