MLP 30K: Rebel Dawn

At some point, the cavernous expanse of the illustrious chamber was more fit to be labeled a basilica than a hall. It was an irony not lost on its makers, or those that toil in the brightly lit marble chamber among the arching pillars and errant machines.

A thousand white coated technicians walk along the conduit routes to check on one-of-a-kind mechanical wonders, while a similar number of red robed adepts and their coffles of servitors flit between even more convoluted contraptions. Scaffolds soar a dozen meters above the ground, connecting exposed columns lined with support struts that would one day decorate the magnificent hall. But for now, it held enormous crystalline helices that span the floor to the wide gallery above them. In time, the masses would see, but for now, only a few distant guardians walk among the silent aeries overlooking their work.

A strange mishmash assortment of objects clutter the antiseptic space; cowling from ancient devices lies split from parent machines, while intricate wax lines streak across the floor, marking out an enormous avian figure that lies beneath the jumbled assortment of devices crowding the landing. All of which would be removed, finished, and polished to a magnificent shine after the inner workings of the unthinkable became reality.

The landing gives rise to a free standing staircase, two hundred and sixteen steps end at an enormous device suspended near the distant wall. Its true purpose might be unclear to many, but its appearance was self evident. An immense throne glows with a soft golden light, fringed like a wreath by electric cabling ducts. Its wires crackle as barely understood generators erect wards on a frill of conduit lines snaking up to the empty seat. Every few moments, eldritch sparks flicker among the curling lines and throw hazy images that dance to life on a bank of monitors clustered around the sides of the free-standing structure. Irreplaceable golden wheels spin and whirl on their axies, connected in looping coils bound by etched platinum bands. Each of those reflect long dead languages from antiquity.

One white coated technician behind an impenetrable silver splash visor jerks his head back. Something strange congeals from the mists on a hololithic plate. Two others, unnamed Selenar minds as bright as the stars, reel back in surprise. One's breath hitches, stewing in a sense of awe and dread in equal measure. Slowly, he finds his voice. A reedy rasp echoes from the circular vox-amp where a mouth should be. “My Lordship!”

From the top of the steps, a single figure brushes a hand across the intricate psychocrystalline wires being bundled beneath the throne's armrest. A simple brush of a black gloved hand lovingly pats the golden plate, easing it into place to cover the delicate machinery. He turns when called, staring out over the small cluster of pristine white figures. He has the only unmasked visage in the room, yet it betrays nothing. His is a mask more inscrutable than the golden helms covering his guardians faces as they pace among the aeries. A mop of black hair is tied back into a knot by a golden ribbon that glints in the light cast by the summit's nimbus.

“My Lordship!” The Selenar man calls a little more boldly, stepping back hesitantly from the bank, and while unseen, his eyes travel to the luminous figure standing beside the throne.

The figure at the summit nods once at a red-robed tech adept, descending the steps with a quickness born of jubilant discovery. His white lab coat billows as he reaches the foot of the landing, weaving seamlessly and precisely among the working clusters of technicians.

“Yes?”

In the presence of the figure that towers over him as a parent to a child, the faceless Selenar bobs his head and gestures towards the display. “The central augury has made contact past the Impossible City, my Lord. You were right, it goes deeper. It goes much deeper.”

“What did you see?”

The scientist nods shakily and hurriedly circles the hololithic projector to flick a few toggles. With a hiss and mist of faint blue, the image plays again. “It was just like this last time.”

A curling path weaves through a cluster of webway corridors into a darkened abyss. There, illuminated by a soft twinkle of starlight, lies the silhouette of a perfect six-limbed tree.

Sibilant whispers and darkness cloud the replay before a more tangible wind billows from unseen corners. With a hum, the gravitic capacitors begin to buzz, and in moments, a gale force wind springs up to lash the interior of the chamber. The uncovered crystalline helices in the corners of the room sing with an unearthly cadence.

“My Lord?!” The Selenar asks as empty partiboard containers scrape along the ground, picked up and tossed by the gale.

But the lone luminescent figure glances to the hololithic display that froths in blue wisps. His gaze is locked on the image melting into being in front of his eyes: a sickly husk sprouts in front of the tree, an eight-limbed weed twisted like the gnarled legs of a desiccated spider.

He doesn't look away as the gravitic generator wells wail, and the winds lash across the high gantries. His golden warriors stare on in horror as an unearthly blue light radiates from the uncovered crystalline structures.

A bolt of lightning lances out from an overloaded capacitor, raking black furrows in the room, a second and third lash out to smash equipment in clouds of scintillating sparks. A low throaty growl emanates from the landing, and with a cataclysmic bang, the crystal pillars shatter in a hurricane of murderous slivers like snow caught in an updraft. Those engulfed by the blizzard of crystal shards are torn to ribbons as banks of equipment explode in glittering flashes.

Sickly blue light and screaming winds pierce the world as an infernal red glow and bestial moan shakes the chamber. The winds die down and the racking forks of lightning subside, but a deep abyssal thrum still rings in the chamber. A lone figure slumps to its hands and knees in the middle of a wavering circle of glittering arcane runes at the foot of the stairs.

The figure dwarfs all but the single luminescent being; his skin hued like dark arterial blood, and garbed in a cloak of many colors. The figure groans, heaving his bulk to standing amid the shimmering heat haze. His single eye stares unfocused as the magnitude of his position comes into focus.

The Crimson King's lone eye traces up from the feet of one who swiftly approaches, each step a thunderclap in its own right. For a fraction of a second, their eyes meet. Words start to form on numb lips but never make it into being. The steely glare of countless eons staring back silence any protest or warning as the enormity of the moment washes over the interloper like an ocean swell.

His icy stare peers out from a perfectly carved face framed in an unbound mane of black hair swirling in the maelstrom. The glamours fade for an instant, and for a second that lasts an eternity, the weight of a galaxy presses on the Crimson King's shoulders and presses him back to kneeling.

“Magnus, what have you done?”

“How long has it been? How many years has this gone on? I see them now, as through a mirror and past a veil. Others do not think, they rage and they scream, and they kill. They kill and try to feel the joy in it, yet find nothing but hollowness. When they finally realize that sensation is out of reach and they will never find that release, one of two things may happen: they break and rage against the shackles, or they despair and sink into a dreamless sleep, desperately hoping to pass from among the living. Despite their rituals and empty rhetoric, we are warbeasts to those who wear the laurels. We are not beyond pain, yet we are inured to other sensations.

What has changed since yesterday? Nothing. But what was yesterday? A day, a month, a year; all are meaningless when we have no direction. Even the rain pelting down and the winds whipping around my ankles means nothing.

I see them now, slinking in the muck and mire. I hear the voices from ages past whisper to me, urging me to spit venom and turn them to rags. To my shame, I do. I see them again, their pieces strewn across churned morasses as the mud falls among the raindrops. Once alive, so alive, now so very still.

We were there once. I was there once. I felt as they felt, I lay as they lay. I saw the sky through fading eyes. I pity them. I feel no rage. I feel cold. I feel my fangs, but I have no claws.

Maybe tomorrow I will feel the winds, and the rain.

Maybe tomorrow.”
~Zerrak, Contemptor , Sons of Horus, 33rd battalion, no.1204-1