The Divine Rite: A Warhammer 40,000 Fanfiction

Part 9

There is a phrase I would use now that perhaps you have heard before. If you have, it surely would only have been in whispers, and I doubt the speaker remains among us. Most likely you’ve never heard of it, and those who have spoken it were branded heretics and slain. It is a term used to decry the galaxy’s greatest lie. The lie perpetuated by the Imperium. It is a simple phrase, two words you use every day. Two words the Ecclesiarchy uses often, but never in conjunction.

False Emperor.

The man who united the galaxy beneath an oppressive regime that has lasted thousands of years. He is lauded for uniting humanity beneath a single banner, a single faith, pushing them toward a single purpose.

These are not lies. They are facts, and yet they are also delusions. Not the statements themselves, but the connotation behind them.

The connotation that any of these, much less all of them, are desirable.

Monotony. Stagnation. The Imperium perpetuates itself simply to continue existing as long as possible. Such a base, animalistic drive, and an incomplete one at that. Even animals seek to survive in order to propagate, to continue not themselves as individuals, but their fellows. The Imperium does not. It survives because it does not wish to die, whatever the consequences of that death may be. It is a corpse that refuses to admit that the heart no longer beats, and even as it rots away, it tries to lash out in rage and denial.

Your empire is dead. It died ten thousand years ago, and ever since it has sat within a facade of gold, distracting you from the lifeless eyes behind it. There is no change save decay. No hope save that a few more years might be bought with the blood of billions. You have been unified, in damnation. You all praise the same god, and he is a false one. You all serve one purpose.

And it is pointless.

To be united in failure and ignorance, to conform to lies and villainy, is worse than any amount of discord could ever be. Better to be fractured and fragmented, flung across the galaxy in small pockets of freedom, than to toil forever as one beneath the lash of a corpse who would be called a god.

*****

The miles tore at soft boots clothing my feet, designed only to be worn around camp. The razor grass ripped at my fine robes, made soft and supple to declare my status as a priestess. None of it was designed for the wilds, as I soon realized I myself was not. I was unable to scrounge, to find my own food, and certainly unable to hunt. I had never needed such skills, not when all was provided for those who contemplated the words of the Emperor, who basked in and shared His light.

I had been trapped in a web of silk, and only now did I realize it.

Comfort had been another kind of restriction, a soft shackle that was nevertheless impossibly strong. Shiss whispered to me almost constantly now, for I was eager for her voice. Two days had passed of hardship, of traveling constantly and sleeping upon bare ground. My stomach was empty, my throat parched, and hers was the only voice I’d heard since leaving. She told me how my luxury ensured my compliance, how lies and corruption hid behind marble and gold. When the sheep are well fed, when they are kept dry, when they sleep as often as they wish, those are the sheep that never seek to escape.

Right up until the moment of their slaughter.

She told me it was so, but I did not blindly accept it. I came to realize the truth in those words as the miles tore first at my shoes, and then at my feet. First at my robes, then at my skin. Blood flowed freely by the time I left the plains frequented by my kin, and still they hadn’t caught up. Though I had left a clear trail of broken foliage behind me, my footprints deep in the mud, my blood staining rocks and razor grass, no one had found me.

Treachery whispered that it had made it so. The footprints behind me had gone a dozen different directions, a hundred. The broken stalks had unbent, the blood had scattered to the wind, drops spread across entire fields. There would be no pursuit.

More’s the pity, Wrath snarled.

Kinship did little other than lament my isolation.

As did I. I had never been alone for more than an hour except to sleep, and that was usually when I was praying. Never had I been so far from the teeming bustle of the waking tribe, or so distant from the gentle choir of their sleep. I longed for them the way I would a missing limb, something I would not notice until it was absent. And like a lost limb, their presence was something I would never get back.

But there was hope here, not for a return, but a chance to move on.

So I did. There was no other choice open to me, just as going back was not an option. Behind me waited only hatred, condemnation, a pyre. I didn’t even blame them. Heretics had burned before, and I had presided over it many a time. It was what we were taught, what I taught them, and it was the faith they held true to.

I blamed myself for betraying that faith.

And I blamed myself for propagating it.

How could such words be true? It was a question I’d not asked before, as they’d always seemed sensible to me while they benefitted me. Another of the strands of comfort that were secretly chains. Psykers were gateways for demons, and so were dangerous heretics. Heretics brought dissent, discord, dangerous thoughts and ideas, and so needed to be culled. It was a safer worldview, a more comforting one.

And only now did I question it, and only because I was on the wrong side of it.

And for that I was ashamed.

It should not be only the slave who sees the shackles, who feels their weight. All who look upon them should. What manner of hypocrite had I been, to embrace my own good at whatever cost, while watching with self righteousness as others suffered? It was this more than the missing skin on my feet, along my arms and legs, that pained me. I had failed myself and my people all my life.

But there is so much of it left, Shiss assured me, her thoughts a gentle caress in my mind. And at last, you are here.

I glanced up from the pitiable sight of my ragged feet, the first of the foothills standing before me. It was a rocky slope, gravel and bare stone covering much of it. What scant foliage existed was entirely Shattervine. The tough green vines were covered with immense thorns which were not just pointed, but edged. The lightest touch would rend skin. A heavier touch would rend it to the bone. Many a desperate climber had made the mistake that gave the shrub its name, gripping it hard for leverage.

When that happened, the thorns shattered, and the poison within flowed freely.

I stared at the slope with horror, for I knew where I was, and what was expected of me. The hill was shrouded in agony, crowned with four tilted pillars of natural rock. This was the Kingsbane Mound, a place of legend and mystery. Haunted.

Cursed.

Ascend, Shiss urged me. Ascend and taste the pain of the vine as your penitence. All your life you have led others astray. This is but a small price to pay.

Ascend, Treachery whispered eagerly. Ascend and let the scars of tribulation change you, for to remain still is to die.

Ascend, Kinship encouraged. For upon this slope I would discover my fellows, and be forever in the embrace of true family.

Ascend, Wrath demanded. No paltry plants or whispered hauntings would stand in my way, for I was chosen.

Chosen of what? It was once again a question I had not asked until now. I followed the voices because they helped me, encouraged me, but what good was blindly following? I’d learned that lesson already this day. And so I hesitated, my hand inches from the sheer slope, for I’d need to climb rather than walk, the way was so treacherous. I did not stop to consider the way my hands would be flayed clean, or that my feet would be lacerated. I didn’t consider that bleeding out was common from Shattervine wounds, even for those wearing the heaviest leather. I didn’t even stop to consider that I was clad only in rags now, nearly naked, and that the toxin would find my veins with ease. Death awaited me on that slope, and for that I did not hesitate.

I paused because I had been misled before, and I’d not let it happen again.

By whom was I chosen?

I heard the collective intake of breath. It sounded of excitement from one, of pride in another, then sorrow, and finally disbelieving rage.

Come and see!

Come, and see.

Come and see.

COME AND SEE!

This time there was only me. There were no others who followed my word, who were led by my path. If this was a false path, I’d at least walk it alone. And looking back over the plains, the endless fields of grass I’d bled to cross, I knew there was no going back. Only forward. And so I took that first step, scrambled up that first length of gravel covered stone.

And I never looked back again.