“Are you ready, my dear Lord Commander?” Melancthon opened his eyes. He saw an image of the Emperor, his sacred face shrouded in holy darkness, light radiating from his enthroned body. In the ikon, the Master of Mankind crooked one skeletal figure towards his ribcage, where a pulpy red heart still beat. The other finger directed the viewer’s gaze towards the portrait’s edge, where strange and menacing creatures peered out with hungry eyes.

  “I have never seen this ikon before,” the Space Marine murmured. He knelt on soft carpet, his greaves crushing its plush fibers. Above his head, flying buttresses of stone leapt from wall to wall.

  “Ahh, yes,” the Magos chittered. It slouched across the chapel’s floor, its mechadendrites purring and cooing to one another. “A personal favorite of mine. Non confidere aliam Lucem, in High Gothic.”

  “Trust no other light. You told me this in the depths, when we first met.”

  “Just so. Rather a longwinded title, in my opinion. But very fine work, nonetheless. I must have been feeling poetic.”

  “Feeling?”

  “You think me incapable of the sensation, Lord Commander?”

  Melancthon shrugged, his armor servos whining. “I have never heard a Magos of the Adeptus Mechanicus use the term. It is of no consequence.”

  A serpentine cable waggled reprovingly. “I must disagree, my dear Elazar. Language is the very embodiment of the sacred. Why else should my order revere, as it assuredly does, the sacred Binaric Cant?”

  Melancthon pursed his lips. In the months since he met the Tech Priest, he had found that it was often given over to these kinds of didactic speeches. He found the habit annoying. But it was best to let the thing express itself.

  “Feeling, intuition—to call it by another name—is one of the factors which distinguishes us as human, Elazar. Yet it is a dangerous thing, left on its own. It must be shaped, codified, hammered into knowledge through language, through expression. This was the Omnissiah’s supreme gift to our species. He took something we always felt, deep down, and gave it form.”

  “And what was this feeling?”

  “That there is a darkness in this world which seeks to unmake us. A darkness which masquerades as brilliant light.” One of the Magos’s many limbs tapped thoughtfully at its skull’s chin. “But come now, enough philosophy. The host is assembled. The time has come.”

  Melancthon rose, turning away from the ikon. The Magos raised a withered hand to halt him and withdraw something from his robes: Melancthon’s helm. It, like the rest of his armor, exhibited a polished gleam, the tiny stress fractures in the ceramite filled and painted over. Reaching out with both hands, the angel accepted the gift, inclining his head in gratitude. He donned the final piece of his armor. As it clicked into place, the suit’s systems ran a diagnostic scan. All the suit’s functions, including its vox, had been restored to full functionality.

  “I am in your debt, Magos Trismegistus.”

  “For now,” the Tech Priest conceded. “That will change when you recover the Ess-Tee-See.”

  Melancthon frowned, grateful that the helm hid his expression. The Magos was obsessed with the item’s recovery. Like all his kind, he looked to the lost relics of the Dark Age of Technology for salvation. The Standard Template Constructs, blueprints and devices still remaining from that age, constituted the most sacred artifacts in existence to the Adeptus Mechanicus. The recovery of just one would be enough to enshrine a Tech Priest’s name in the halls of sacred Mars. And Erastor Trismegistus was convinced that one such advanced was here on Luce Prime. Worst of all, he was probably right. The Magos believed that Marius controlled a device that could replicate food from raw atomic energy. How else could Marius sustain Luce Prime’s numberless inhabitants on a world that did not import foodstuffs from beyond the planet’s surface? The data they received from hacking into the Electric Heart only seemed to confirm their suspicions. They found no evidence of widespread agriculture on any level of the planet-spanning city. Shimmer eel fishing still took place on a massive scale, but hardly at a rate sufficient to support the entire populace.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “Of course, Magos. Such an artifact would be invaluable to the forces of the Imperium,” Melancthon said truthfully. He left his other thought unsaid, that such an artifact would prove equally invaluable to the legions of darkness that poured forth from the Eye of Terror.

  “Indeed,” chirruped the Magos, self-satisfaction dripping from his voice. “Now, after you, Lord Commander,” he said, a spoon-tipped mechadendrites gesturing towards the chapel’s exit. Together, the two servants of the Imperium stepped out from the secret chapel and into the workshop of Erasmus Trismegistus. He stood upon the chapel's broad stairs. They were close to the Duke's palace. Perilously close, truth be told. The Space Marine had been shocked when the Magos had finally revealed the location of his private laboratory, and at the scale of it.

  Now, standing within it, Melancthon saw his promised army.

  They filled the massive space to its confines. Men and women stood upon rusted workbenches or perched upon salvaged vehicle frames, their hands browned by the rust-stained metal. They perched upon overhead gantries and piping, or else stood shoulder to shoulder on the room's oily floor. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of eyes stared up at the legendary subdevil, their fabled and mysterious leader of old, and at their new general, a Space Marine armored in polished gray. Mistrust filled some of those eyes. Fear lurked in them all. These were people who knew all two well the evil and heresy which lurked behind the noble mask worn by Colhan Marius. That did not mean they trusted the strange transhumans who now led them against him. Still, they had come. Some had come because Trismegistus had called them. Others had come because they wanted a chance, just once, to see a Space Marine before the end. And finally, some had come because they could not resist the chance to spit into Marius's eye.

  These represented the leadership of the Children of the Emperor, individuals from nearly every cell on Luce Prime. More would fight, many more, but only if Melancthon could sway those who stood here. This was his chance. There would not be another.

  The crowd murmured and shifted. Some sucked in their breath when they saw the Magos. Others shrank back doubtfully from the Space Marine. All waited. All listened.

  "Who are you?" Melancthon asked. Nervous shifting, unsettled whispering. He repeated himself, louder this time. "Who are you?"

  Some few souls sputtered their own name in terror. Melancthon ignored their voices. He saw their heat signatures spiking and knew he had startled them, had spiked their adrenaline. Their vision had just sharpened at the center, darkening at the edges, their skin begun to tingle, their hearts begun to pound. With one question, he had banished every stray thought from the room. Now, they hung upon his words, as if he were the only other soul who existed on Luce Prime.

  "I am Elazar Melancthon. I am a Brother to the Storm Warriors. I am a blade forged in fire and tempered in combat. And I am ashamed, my brothers." He felt their surprise at the last remark, watched them blink away the shock. He strode down the stairs, laconic, relaxed. The way a man might stroll when taking his ease among friends. The gathered warriors parted around him, pressing against on another to give him room.

  "Am I a serpent, my friends?" The Space Marine raised his arms, splaying his fingers as though to display every inch of his armored form. "Am I a verminous rodent?"

  "No!" cried out several voices, still tinged with fear.

  "Then why do I hide in the belly of this city? Why do I slither about here, starved for light and air? I am a Storm Warrior, a prince of the heavens and an avenging angel made in the image of the God-Emperor, beloved by all!" He clenched his manipled hands into fists. "I will tell you why, my brethen. I linger in this pit because a false god sits enthroned on this world, surrounded by a host of cringing wretches unfit to draw breath. Think of it!" he demanded. "Even now, that skulking traitor parades around his palace, simpering and cooing to himself with soft words."

  "Traitor!" A voice cried.

  "Death to Marius!" another joined in.

  "Who are you?" Melancthon demanded again. He spun round and thrust a finger out towards a sallow-faced man who blanched in fear.

  "Petyr Sonnis," the man stammered, too quiet to be heard.

  "I know who you are," Melancthon responded, letting his voice settle for a moment before crying out, "You are a Child of the Emperor, a true son of Luce Prime, and a loyal servant of Terra. Tell me, Petyr, would it shame you to draw your blade alongside mine?"

  The man's jaw dropped, but he fumbled a knife free from his belt. "No, lord. Never!"

  "And you--" Melancthon turned again. "Would it grieve you to fight at my side? And you, would it dishearten you to know that, for all time, you engraved your name upon history next to mine?" Each question drew another fervent, almost frantic reponse.

  "Then I am not alone!" the Space Marine roared. "Let the false god tremble upon his ashen throne! Let him hear us, my friends, let him know that even now, Melancthon marches, and all the hosts of the City of Light march with him! Let him know who you are!" He snatched his chainsword from his side and stabbed it into the air, firing its prometheum engine. It roared a holy guttural warcry.

  "Who are you?"

  "The Children of the Emperor?"

  "Who are you!?"

  "THE CHILDREN OF THE EMPEROR!" They shouted and chamber trembled with the force of the cry.

  "Then you and I are the same, men and women sworn to duty and born to glory. And history shall remember our names."