The Infinite and the Divine (Warhammer 40,000)

by Robert Rath

Which is not to say there were not gods in the firmament, of course. Trazyn knew there were, because he had helped kill them.

But that was Trazyn, wasn’t it? Born under fortunate stars. Always the statistical outlier, never having to work for it, the bastard.

The curse of biotransference had made parodies of them all, but none more extreme than he and Orikan. While Trazyn had been remade into a hunched, hooded thing – a scholar eternally at his work – Orikan’s slight frame had twisted to reflect the soul within.

Residual self image

Orikan did not blame them. After all, what the young race birthed had shaken him so badly he’d needed a century of meditation to recover, and he’d merely glimpsed it via astral precognition.

Slanesh

Sensations disconnected from context. Things retained, but with no memory of learning them – one knows the colour blue, but cannot recall the first time one knew its name.

Trazyn was not, in other terms, a coward. His power plant held nothing but scorn for those who deserted an endeavour.

Heartless

Necrons… Did these corrupted things even deserve the name? They scuttled forward, bladed tripod legs digging in the sand for purchase. Arms that had once held command staffs and gauss blasters were now given over to implanted blades. On one, Orikan swore he saw the defaced cartouche of a royal warden. Once they had been nobility, soldiers, guardians of empire. Now they were Destroyers, fallen to the madness that drove them to hate all living things.

Bad form, by the way, cheating at the trial. Extraordinarily imaginative, but bad form.’

He collected them, of course, he collected everything. But he considered them on the same level as orks, or various kinds of carnivorous algae. Their spread across the cosmos had destroyed so many more interesting civilisations, and since the rise of the Emperor their culture had an utter sameness that bored him.

Horus’ body was likely being venerated somewhere in the Eye of Terror, after all, and the Emperor was just sitting there on Terra. Seemed a waste, such a historic figure left to rot like that. Trazyn could do a far better job at preservation and restoration.

Heist the empra

He tossed and caught it once, then winked and levelled the other hand towards Orikan as if it were a pistol.

Wink and gun lmao

On the whole, they are attacking Serenade because it is there, but they also need its water to cool their ship reactors if they hope to survive warp translation.’

Author doesn't understand how much ice/water is in space? Would be easier and more efficient to get water from comet than waste all that energy making planetfall.

Trazyn chuckled, his laughter rising, becoming more throaty, echoing off the walls of the cavernous bridge. Deciding he didn’t like the lonely sound, he waved a hand, and the bridge crew – hardwired into instrument cartouches and command cradles – hollowly laughed along with him.

It was time, Trazyn decided. He reached into his dimensional pocket, selected a tesseract labyrinth, and pressed the key.

Pokeballs

Trazyn waved a hand, as if dismissing the aid. ‘Rewards are the fundamental mechanism of good leadership. Any master would do the same.’ ‘My daylight masters in the Serenade Central Librarium did not.’ ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘Yours is a terrorised culture, my friend, and terror breeds obedience – but not loyalty.’

‘As you did,’ said Orikan. ‘I resisted. I saw the delusion. You were only too willing to trade in that broken body of yours.’ Trazyn stopped. ‘I went to the flames of biotransference in chains. It is distinct in my engrams. I can picture it with clarity – the lock-collar around my throat. Metal hands, tireless, grasping my shoulders. They took me in my library. The one who did it, Nilkath, was a Sautekh warden. One of the stormlord’s vassals.’

Trazyn flashed the Sign of Vokk, a metaphysically obscene gesture that, in simple terms, indicated that Trazyn hoped the Diviner would – in all timelines and dimensions – come to a brutal and humiliating end. Orikan flashed it back, and Trazyn gave a low chuckle.

Flipping the bird

‘My only caution, my friend, is that you do not cling so hard to these memories. When the Deceiver made these bodies we inhabit, he twisted them. And he twisted our engrams. I cannot remember what my old face looked like. Or the place where I was born.

What he had seen, what the enthralled Immortals saw, was a rent in space. A passage to a red dimension where bent, taloned things lurked. Yellow eyes peering through a curtain of misting blood.

Sweet demons are coming!

Orikan stole a glance away from the battle-management panels that hung before him in the air. ‘I hope you brought an army.’ ‘You think so little of me, dear colleague,’ said Trazyn, picking out a labyrinth. ‘I brought five.’

So much pokemon!