The Divine Rite: A Warhammer 40,000 Fanfiction

Part 11

This is the last I will say to you all. You have heard my words, listened to my claims. Your hearts know the truth of them whether your minds accept it or not. I have done all I can. I have spoken of the truths you all have seen with your own eyes. Only the willfully blind could deny the evidence which has surrounded you all your life, and those who lie to themselves will not be swayed by any truth I could utter.

Each of you has witnessed the oppression and horror of the Imperium. Each of you has seen atrocity after atrocity go unpunished, seen the righteous fall and the wicked triumph. Each of you has lost something, be it wealth, love, a loved one. At the very least, you all have lost your freedom and your sense of self. The crushing weight of conformity has seen to that. The impossible power of a galaxy spanning regime has ensured it. Worst of all, the sugared lies of a Corpse God, of a False Emperor, they have swayed you to embrace your own destruction.

Their laws have forever been your shackles.

Their sermons have always been your prison sentence.

Their clergy are your gaolers.

And their so called god is the warden.

You have heard the truth from my own lips. You have seen it with your own eyes. You have suffered the lash of it with your own flesh. You all know what it is I ask you to turn from, as I did so many years ago.

Yet what I turn you toward, that is the mystery.

You have nothing but my word to assure you of the nature of Chaos. None of you have experienced it, else my words would not be necessary at all. But think on what I have said. Witness the actions of my forces, and realize I can speak nothing but the truth. Your defenders have fallen, your world is in my grasp. I need but close my fist, and it will be broken forever. I need but give one order, and new chains will be wrapped around your throats.

But witness now that I do neither of those things.

You have been gathered here to simply listen. Your armies were broken because they would silence me, they would silence the truth. See now how far the Imperium will go to perpetuate their lies, and realize this is because all their demands go against nature, against the very desires of human souls. They enforce their demands with iron fists, with gilded words, because the truth is so much easier to embrace. Freedom is what you all yearn for, what your very souls quake to discover, and so the Imperium must do all it can to crush your will.

I have spoken. You know the way forward, and your chains have been cut. None now stand who can stop you from going to Chaos. Your gaolers lie dead, their enforcers beside them. The gate has been opened, and I usher you toward it, but as I said, I’ll take none who do not go willingly.

I give you freedom, embrace it if you desire, or go back to the blind servitude of the willfully damned.

There are others left in chains. If you would free them, you will be given arms and the chance to spread salvation. None should rest while their fellows suffer.

We leave in one month. We have room for all who would join us. Until then this world is ours, and it will be returned to the foolish deceived when we leave. We want not the world of slavery this place has become. The only law is that of decency, that you do nothing to your fellows they would not welcome. Those who would stop their kin from going free will be met with death. Go to your homes, know that the Word Bearers are watching. Know that the warriors of the Divine Rite are among you, and those who transgress against this simple, natural law will be met with the harshest of consequences.

You have thirty days to make the easiest decision of your life.

Slavery or freedom.

The choice must be yours, and no one else’s, just as the consequences will be.

*****

I quickly discovered there was more to my new home than immediately met the eye. The eight fissures all stopped fifty paces short of the obsidian rock, leaving it upon a hundred pace across platform of earth. I approached it from the south, and as I neared it, a cave became visible in the side facing me, the shadows within blending into the onyx, rendering it almost invisible until I was very close, until I was wading through the piled bones that surrounded it.

Or so I assumed.

I circled the rock and found no other entrance, but some whim, or possibly instinctual understanding, had me walk to the far pillar. The northern pillar, the marker of Khorne. It took a score of minutes to reach. However, as I turned, walking back toward the stone, I knew my experiment to be worthwhile. As I neared the obsidian, the side of it shimmered, revealing a small cave, a spiralling stair.

And when I circled the rock once more, there were no others.

Though I had discovered the manner in which the stone functioned, it would take me many weeks to realize the meaning. The path one took to the stone, that was the face of Chaos as seen by that person. They would reach the center and believe their own truth, see it as the only truth. To see all the faces of Chaos, to see another perspective, that was a journey of its own. Such encompassing knowledge was rare, a gift I was most grateful to receive. But to bring the message of Chaos to others, to show them such freedom, I needed to understand that their perspective, their understanding, would be limited.

To those who had been wronged, who burned with hatred and resentment, Khorne might be the only god they ever praised. Or would ever need to.

To those who suffered loss, who longed for belonging, the name of Nurgle may be the only to grace their lips.

To those who wished only to revel in the delights of this life, to embrace joy, Slaanesh would be their salvation.

And for those who wished always to know more, to learn, whose lives needed to be unceasingly varied, Tzeentch answered the call of their hearts.

Although I would not realize it for some time, I knew even then that I was not only the last of the Nine, I was the greatest of them. Eight spokes, but one axle around which they all turned. I was the center, the pinnacle, the catalyst the others had spent their lives waiting for.

And some of them had been waiting a very long time indeed.

I entered the stone for the first time filled with boundless anticipation. I was not disappointed.

The stone itself was not in fact an isolated boulder. It was the rounded, weathered peak of a mountain, of a meteor. A solid piece of black glass harder than diamond, more enduring than the stars. I did not then, and know not now, where it had come from, but as I spiraled downward ever deeper into the earth I came to realize that this place was not of my own world. My way was illuminated by a makeshift torch, fashioned from a femur and the remains of my own ragged clothing. It lit with the merest touch of my obsidian blade. I proceeded naked into the darkness, covered in filth from the trail, and in my own blood shed during my ascent.

The reflections of that light did not shimmer or shine. They did not refract as one would expect, or give back clear images. The light flowed into the surrounding glass like water, sliding through it, over it, clear water spilled into oil. Impossible colors filled the walls, the floor, my eyes unable to tell where each step was. The first time I watched my foot descend, looking as if only an infinite void of shifting color lay beneath it, panic seized my chest. Then I tread upon solid stone. My footing was sure. And I never again looked down as I took my next steps.

I might have descended for hours. It may have been minutes. Each time I took that journey, it seemed to change. Sometimes it would be moments from the top to the bottom, or seem like it was, and yet I would emerge hours later. Sometimes the trip would be hours long, yet when I next emerged the sun had not moved at all. Time did not flow properly here, anymore than sight could be trusted.

It was faith that guided me in the darkness, and some whim led me to douse the torch itself.

Only then was it clear.

Innumerable lights gleamed in the stone around me, each of them so dim that the torch had obliterated them all with its brilliance. Now that I was not blinded, that I immersed myself willingly in the darkness, I could see all the subtle beauty around me. Each light was a different color. Some pulsed, some wavered, others flickered, and some faded in and out of view. No two were alike, and all around them was the oil. Occasionally I would watch it engulf a light, or see a new one spark into existence. It was mesmerizing.

But no matter how entranced I was, I did not miss a step, for each was taken with utter certainty. I might not have known then where I was going, but I knew what lay behind me. Death and lies. How long had I allowed myself to be blinded by the words of others? How many had my own words blinded? My new powers were the height of corruption, and yet joy sang in my soul. I was filled with a light that I could not describe, giddy with it, my heart pounding. This was not sin. This was not damnation.

And even if it was, did it matter?

I smiled, wider and truer than I had ever smiled before. And though my reflection was as false as ever, I gazed upon my true reflection in the light filled oil. And though my skin was stained with blood, my teeth gleaming and sharp, I saw more beauty there than I ever had in my previous life.

For once I looked upon a free woman.