The Divine Rite: A Warhammer 40,000 Fanfiction

Part 10

Your Emperor is no god. He is a false prophet, a painted idol pretending to be solid gold. Praising such a deity is no sin, I’d not condemn you for it. I condemn Him in your stead. His lies would have your soul trapped for an eternity instead of free. His empire would slay you for speaking the truth, as they would slay me. I’d not even condemn his servants for blindly following the only light they’ve ever been shown, but for one thing.

Those who follow trap those who would stray.

Not just by force of arms, but by the crushing weight of propaganda. They make you yearn for slavery, to desire this constraint. This is why those who turn from Chaos are not damned, but those who follow the False Emperor are. The Ecclesiarchy, the Adeptus, those who bear arms to chain their fellows. They are the damned. They are the ones who sway you to embrace your tyrant, to turn from freedom. It is the ultimate sin for one very simple reason, one that your own Ecclesiarchy acknowledges.

You cannot save one who does not wish to be saved.

If you take the sin away from a sinner, they simply sin again, their souls remain stained. They must leave sin before you can save them, they must chase salvation or they’ll never reach it. Freedom cannot be brought to those who sit passively once their chains are cut.

You need to want this, which is why I am trying so hard to convince you. It would be easy to throw chains back upon you, to pull you into a different form of slavery. It would also be without purpose. Such an action goes against everything I believe, against what Chaos truly is. Unlike the rule of the Imperium, Chaos thrives only in the hearts of the free.

And none can be free unless they desire it. Chaos cannot embrace you unless you come to it willingly.

And that is a claim your Emperor cannot make.

*****

I gripped the thick length of vine. It was impossible to avoid the numerous thorns, and once again my skin was pierced. It wasn’t the first time, by now it wasn’t even the hundredth, but every time was just as agonizing. Tears wept as freely as my blood, staining the rocks beneath me, feet scraped ragged by stone sliding in the slick of their own pain. As always, I sobbed. As always, I gritted my teeth. And as always, I hauled myself ever upward.

The only relief I experienced was whispered thanks when the thorns didn’t break, and it was not spoken to the Emperor for the first time in my life.

My whispered praise was for Treachery, for now I also knew him as the god of chance, of fate. If anyone could be thanked for this small mercy, it was him. Poison already coursed through my limbs, somehow numbing them, even as it set my nerves afire. Much more and far more vital muscles would be paralyzed and rendered still.

The voices hadn’t quieted as I climbed, they had become a cacophony, overlapping and unceasing. What they spoke of now was different than their muttering before. Now they spoke of the galaxy, of their children, of themselves. I learned much of them during the hours I ripped myself apart on those slopes, learned truths I would never forget.

And before long, I began to let those truths shape me.

“I am in everything. Every tumble of the dice, every bullet piercing a chink in armor, every foot that slips and sends you down a flight of stairs. Every whimsy of misfortune, every twist of fate. My will is in all things, is all things. You are my servant, and I am yours. Whichever I desire, so long as I desire it, it is true. Only truth is real, and the only truth is Chaos, and Chaos is often lies. Chaos is the only reality that matters. It is the only reality that is eternal. I am change, I am fate, I am chance, and so I am Chaos.”

Much more was whispered by Treachery, but it was this that stuck with me the most, for it is the first time I was given a name for that influence, for those voices. It had never been a name when spoken of by the offworlders. They simply claimed that without the Emperor there would be chaos, for He was order. When the voices used the word, it was with reverence, with import, and the tone the word was spoken in shook my very soul. The agony of that outstripped the tearing of my flesh.

Until it stopped.

It took me some time to realize that my flesh no longer tore, that the thorns no longer pierced it. I watched a hand grip the vines, watched them skid off of my flesh, as though it were diamond. And while the agony of my existing wounds persisted, the wonder at the new armor which was my skin brought a reverent grin to my bleeding lips.

“I am constant. I am stagnation and surety, comfort and security. All who know me have always known me, and will always know me. I am shiftless, I am forever. The only reality is that which never fades. Sickness and suffering, despair and torment, such things are ever constant. For those who embrace them, such things can be a blessing, making the blessed as ceaseless as their pain. Chaos is forever, it is eternal, while all else is nought but a dream. All are my children, and so I cannot end. I am forever, I am unchanging, and so I am Chaos.”

It was Kinship who spoke such comforting words, who allowed me to endure the pain, for now I saw it truly. It was no curse, but a blessing. As I crawled, my agony ever increasing, I knew more and more that my destination was worth it. The torture my body endured would be repaid a thousandfold in time, and so every gash, every gouge that filled with dirt, each was an investment. The god of pestilence, of stagnation, of suffering and eternity, he tested me now, and I would not be found wanting. He wanted me to succeed, to see the truth, to embrace him. Not for his good, but for mine.

And I did.

I was more attentive now, my wounds sealing as I watched, the old slices vanishing as my flesh flowed back together. The poison was purged from my body, but not by purity. Purity was a lie told by sinners to mask their lack of virtue. All of us are stained. The lie is to see those stains as wicked. To err is to be human, to be real, and so those stains are to be treasured. Perfection lies only in death, in ceasing, in oblivion. So long as we live, we are flawed, and so it was a molten tide of oil that poured through me and burned away the toxin.

“I am wrath. I am anger, hatred, rage, righteous fury and blackest of loathing. All violence stems from me, and violence is a measure of power. Power alone shapes the multitude of worlds in this paltry existence, and the Immaterium is nothing but power. All words can only be enforced by strength, all notions only come to be through exertion, and all change is wrought by conflict. Eternal kingdoms stand because of the thickness of their walls, and they are raised by the might of their armies. Nothing stands, and nothing comes to be, without me. I am all wrathful, all powerful, and so I am Chaos.”

A weight began to drag on me. I gripped it, a strap across my chest holding the weight to my body. It was sudden, but welcome. I reached over my shoulder, feeling a hilt crafted of bone. I drew it uneasily, the sheathe releasing it without prompting, as though both blade and scabbard were eager to be parted. A sword with a broad, flat blade of pure obsidian sat in my hand, nearly weightless for being as tall as I. It hungered, and so I hungered, and as my eyes settled on the slope ahead, a great hatred filled me.

How dare these measly plants impede me?

I slashed with the sword, the obsidian edge carving through vines like a scythe through wheat. The plants shriveled where they were cut, the edges blackening, and then they began to burn. The charred embers spread, kindled. They traveled swiftly to the root of each plant, charring it to ash in moments. The path before me cleared, and a dark elation filled me with each I hacked apart. With each I burned. I strode forward with renewed strength, brimming with vitality, my wounds healed, my skin impervious, my weapon terrible. The god of carnage, of power, of life and death, his blessing was upon me.

“You know me as Shiss, as Lasciviousness, but I am so much more. I am rapture, I am bliss, I am joy, happiness, pleasure, lust, pride. All things that motivate the mortal soul, all things that drive it ever onward. I am glory. I am desire. Any who have ever loved have loved me. Any who have ever wanted have wanted me. I am love. I am want. Those who see me truly know that their drives should not be hindered, should not be hidden, should not inspire shame. They should merely inspire. Chaos is imagination, shaped by the will, the whims, the emotions of mortals. It is purity of desire and purpose, unfettered by artificial shackles. I am ambition, I am perfection, and so I am Chaos.”

I crested the hill at last, the crown that had grown ever closer finally at hand. I could see now that each pillar was adorned with a single symbol. Not one carving, or painting, but each bore its own symbol a thousand, a million times. Carved, painted in blood, inked, unweathered by time, fresh as the day they were scrawled by hands human, or otherwise. Lightning cracked in the clear blue sky, the air that had thinned during my climb became charged, the pressure of it intense. I was fit to burst out of my skin, to shed all I was and emerge raw and reborn. Fresh. Pure.

I smiled, for I yearned for that release, that freedom.

Stepping through the last scattering of ash, I gazed down upon an immense crater. A black stone sat in the middle, a massive piece of onyx. I knew, though I could not see, that somewhere a blade-shaped piece of it was missing. The piece thrummed in my hand. From that stone ran eight great fissures, each large enough to swallow my village whole, which ran all the way up the sides, terminating at the edge of the crater. They were spaced perfectly, the axles of a wheel. Four of them pointed in the cardinal directions, and at the tip of those four sat the pillars. I looked upon them and found I recognized these symbols I’d never before seen.

My eyes were drawn to the fickle east, where the winds of storms came from over the sea. Change was not comfortable or easy, but was often necessary. “Treachery.” I whispered, gazing upon the flame adorned eye that had been repeated across the pillar a million times.

My gaze moved to the calming west, where the plains were ever fertile, the herds always bountiful, and where tribes were sure to prosper. In that direction lay my old home, surely visible if I cared to see it, but I did not. My eyes instead lingered on the three arrows and three circles that littered the column. My new home was here. “Kinship.”

I turned north, to the violent and empty lands filled with the monstrous predators that filled my people’s legends. Beyond the mountains lay only death, for we were too weak to conquer it. We had not the power. Not yet. My eager orbs roved over the blocky runes, seeing them as brass and covered in blood, however they were inscribed. “Wrath.”

At last I spun in place, facing south. It loomed behind me, my circuitous route having circled the base of the mound somewhat. Intentionally so, I now knew. For south was the place of forbidden lands, where great treasures of the past lay, where glory was for the taking. It was where the ruins of the Ancients lay, their bone structures ethereal and delicate, but impossibly strong. I took in the crescents and circles of that symbol with an eager eye, that repeated shape holding a million whispered promises. “Lasciviousness.”

The voices, quieted at the moment of my ascent, began again in chorus. They spoke, each of their own might, their own perfection. All the reasoning was sound. Every word of it was true, I could sense it. My mind reeled at the contradictions, at the impossibilities. I took one agonized step forward, the pain no longer from my body breaking, but from my mind. Before I realized it, those tortured steps had brought me to the obsidian rock. I placed a hand upon it, felt pain sear my soul, and the world went black.

“You know our names.” the voices spoke in chorus. A roar. A whisper. A hiss. A chuckle. “You know them, but have not spoken them. Speak them now, child, for then we can come to you.”

Then once voice spoke alone, and the words were a caress upon the most private of my thoughts and desires.

“There is a blessing you have yet to receive. But for this one, you must ask.”

My mind reeling, my thoughts a jumble, I was still able to picture the look on his face. Marcus, as he presented me with the chaos touched product of his forced obsession. The slavish devotion, the wanton desire that had overturned his mind, because I had made it so. I knew then what the voice truly meant. I had been given a gift, but it was not the one I wanted. I desired something else, needed something else, and it was being offered.

I need only say what it was.

My voice was a key, and right now it turned only one way. It locked. It closed shackles, barred doors, enslaved the free. All I wanted was for it to turn the other way. “I want my voice, my powers, to free mankind rather than enslave it!” I cried.

“For that, you must understand freedom.” the chorus answered.

Power. Pleasure. Comfort. Knowledge.

Wrath. Desire. Love. Whimsy.

Four aspects, four parts, four pillars, eight spokes, one wheel.

Tzeentch.

Nurgle.

Khorne.

Slaanesh.

One eye. One star. One truth.

And as I thought it, the chorus cried out in unison, in triumph. The four pillars of the eight pointed star, the singular eye of Chaos. The one truth was Chaos, the four simply different faces of it, and the truth was that Chaos was freedom.

My own voice joined theirs, my cry of victory rending the stars themselves, and forevermore that voice would not close any minds.

Now, it would open them.