The Glorious Tomb

	There has been a time of nothing. How long, I do not know. I know nothing when I sleep. There are no dreams, no sensation.
 	My first indication that my slumber is done is that I am cold and in pain. Praise be to the Emperor, for the pain and cold tell me that I live, that soon I will serve Him again from beyond the doors of death. Praise be! Invictus Potens is active, my glorious tomb awakens!
 	The cold will be fleeting. The pain is with me always.
 	A blinking cursor appears in my mind’s eye. It is all I can see. Invictus Potens’s eyes are inactive, and my own have not seen anything for five hundred years.
 	Words scroll across my implanted viewplate.
 	Cogitators alpha, beta, gamma, active. Life support systems awakened. He that giveth life, holdeth life. Let His grip be firm. Logos memorandum operational. Blessed are the recollections of the past, for in them are the seeds of tomorrow’s victories.
 	Invictus Potens has a mind of his own, a bestial thing that meshes with mine. The logos awakens along with the logic engines that house his spirit. It will record my mental state along with his. My thoughts. These thoughts.
 	Initiate testing sequence.
 	There is a pause.
 	Testing sequence initiated. Engaging engine. Fuel pumps active. Ignition sequence starting… Three… Two… One…
 	A shudder rumbles through me, a sense of growing heat. Invictus Potens’s joints move, motive fibre bundles tighten, pistons push against gravity. He stands tall. I feel the Dreadnought’s movements as if they are my own, but the sensations are unreal, as if my flesh were numb.
 	I have little flesh remaining.
 	Engine test successful. Praise the Omnissiah! Engaging systems array. Engaging weapons links.
 	Invictus Potens’s full systems array comes online in a blaze of coloured text, runes and informational dialogues that fill my sensorium. The date and time appears at the top left, chrono stilled at the moment my last sleep commenced. Targeting reticules paste themselves over the blackness. Ammo counts, all at zero, power levels, shell integrity, temperature, lubrication levels, fuel levels, elevation, air pressure, air mix, nutrient levels, amniotic status, biological component status, and more. They glow green against the black. His systems are hale. Beyond this, I still cannot see. 
 	Remote activation sequence coupling requested. Guard the key, for the key is the gate. Remote activation sequence coupling accepted. Forge pass coding recognised. Identity coding AA/LIF/ 5538 Dreadnought Chassis ‘Invictus Potens’. Remote systems control granted.
 	I sense an intrusion from outside, a questing, electric presence that observes and notes. It infiltrates Invictus Potens’s body. His weapons mounts activate and deactivate under this intruder’s control. I watch the power feed graphs flicker up and down. These are phantom sensations. My tomb will be limbless, not yet fitted with weaponry for whatever role I have been woken for. The pain grows. I– Argh!
 	Biotic linkage error. Logos Memorandum interrupt. Reinitiating.
 	This is not a phantom sensation. It is growing, as it always does. It will reach a crescendo that is not quite enough to consume me, and thereafter become tolerable. The climb to that plateau is the worst part, and is not yet done. I grit what is left of my teeth. The muscles in my jaw are wasted. All of them are. My body is broken. Invictus Potens is my might, his strength replaces my own. His power uplifts me, that I might serve still. Praise be.
 	Weapon links functional. Weapon mounts functional. Weapon interface functional. Weapon power couplings functional. Praise the Omnissiah! Engaging auto-senses.
 	My vision activates, my hearing, my voice. Invictus Potens’s augurs flare bright, whiting my sensorium out. I would blink, if I could, but I can do nothing but endure the glare until the view stabilises. It duly does. Grainy and imperfect, distorted as if viewed through a fish’s eye. My sepulchre has been moved from my crusade’s strike cruiser, the Majesty. I see the Mausoleum of the Eternal Crusader instead, flagship of our order. 
 	I am free of the sepulchre’s restraints. The oil bath has been drained, the blast screen lowered into the floor, but I am still within the alcove. Not time yet, then, for me to march to war. This is an initial activation, as is standard. I remember everything and nothing. Only my thoughts are my own, only the moment.
 	A Techmarine and an Apothecary stand before me, clad in their battleplate. Chanting forge-serfs are close by, and thralls attend them. A Chaplain in robes strides the room shouting praises to the Emperor. At the edges of my sight, bent around me by the Invictus’s wide-angle augur distortion, I see the stone of my grave, stained yellow by preservative oils.
 	‘Invictus Potens! Awake!’ declaims the Techmarine as he flicks scented lubricants at me. The Techmarines of the Black Templars follow the rites of the Omnissiah-Emperor punctiliously. I do not recognise him.
 	‘I am awake,’ Invictus Potens says. I have never been able to think of it as my voice, so deep and harsh: a machine’s voice, not a man’s.
 	‘Praise be! Praise be! Praise the Ominissiah, who art the Emperor of Man in the form of most holy machine. Praise the melding of the flesh and the steel. Praise the Golden Throne, that which embodies this melding. Praise Invictus Potens, a hallowed reflection of our Lord,’ the Techmarine says, his forge-thralls chanting with them.
 	‘Praise be,’ says the Apothecary, more quietly. The Techmarine looks at my casing, whereas the Apothecary stares deep into the distorting eye of Invictus, as if he would see me behind the machine’s plating.
 	‘All systems operate within holy parameters. Invictus Potens is functioning without the taint of malfunction,’ states the Techmarine.
 	The Apothecary leans in to examine some device plugged into Invictus’s front. ‘Biologics read healthy. How are you, Brother Adelard?’ 
 	He speaks into the Dreadnought’s ear, hidden behind the glacis. He addresses me directly, not the machine-man melding I have become, and so uses my old name. I appreciate his attempts to make me welcome, but what is in a name? Invictus Potens is my third. It is a label, nothing more.
 	‘Pain,’ I say. I hear the strain in Invictus’s voice. The pain has yet to reach its maximum level, I know this although there is no gauge to measure it. The Apothecary nods and tweaks something. Warmth pulses through my wizened remains. 
 	‘Better,’ Invictus Potens grates. The Apothecary places his hand briefly upon my sarcophagus in sympathy. His gesture is wasted. I feel nothing that is not directly relevant to the prosecution of war.
 	I think I recognise the Apothecary. 
 	‘What are my orders, Brother Hengist?’ I say. 
 	‘What are my orders, Brother Hengist?’ Invictus says for me. 
 	I am wrong.
 	‘I am Clovis. Brother-Apothecary Hengist was my master.’ He hesitates. ‘He died seventy-three years ago.’ I have nothing to say to that. I have no memory of Hengist having a novitiate. ‘I understand your error. I inherited his blessed wargear when he fell, praise be,’ he says. ‘The Eternal Crusader is en route to the Armageddon sector. An ork invasion, a large one. Many of our brothers have gathered. Do not rouse yourself overly, you will sleep again soon.’
 	I see activity behind him. Another Dreadnought – an Ironclad – is being exposed. Flashing lights over his sepulchre indicate his oil bath has drained. His sarcophagus door, marked Cantus Maxim Gloria, is sliding down. Incense curls around his grave. He is truly ancient, an Old One. This information is presented to me, not recalled.
 	‘How long?’ I say.
 	The Techmarine adjusts his bulky equipment. A new line scrolls across my vision.
 	Time check. Internal chronograph reset. Resetting.
 	The date blinks out on my display chronometer. When it returns, it is running again.
 	760998.M41. 
 	Nine-nine-eight.
 	I have slept for 89 years.
 	Reset complete. Praise the Lord of Man, praise the Lord of Machines. Praise the binary of the twain.
 	‘Eighty-nine years?’ Invictus speaks.
 	‘I am sorry,’ Brother Clovis says. ‘There was deterioration in your nervous system, a viral infection. It has been arrested, but it took time, and Marshal Ricard was unwilling to risk you until you were well.’
 	Marshal Ricard? I remember a Ricard. He was a novitiate, a boy.
 	‘You awaken me now?’
 	‘We are waking you all,’ says Clovis.
 	Invictus Potens’s engine deactivates. The power bleeds from his systems. The light is receding. I have many questions, but his voice is robbed from me. The clamps of the sepulchre reach out and grasp the shell of my tomb.
 	Testing complete. Testing complete.
 	Blessed are arms of iron, blessed are feet of steel.
 	‘Blessed is he who impels them, though his own limbs be shorn from his body,’ say the forge-thralls, following the same cant as Invictus’s systems.
 	Initiating mid-term temporary shutdown.
 	Blackness returns, crowding out the world. My vision overlay blinks out, the strength goes from the muscle bundles. Invictus Potens sags on his legs.
 	All that I have left is the pain. That never leaves me. Even as I slip into the dreamless sleep it is there. It is there now.
 	There is a mighty clamour on the embarkation deck. Squads run to their drop pods. I see Brusc, for a moment, my last neophyte, leading a Crusader squad. It is he, I am sure of it. I do not remember how long he has been a Sword Brother, but I recognise his battleplate. Then he is gone. 
 	Prayer, hymns and oaths vie with the noise of machines. Men kneel before Chaplains for the blessings of the Emperor. Ash crosses are smeared upon their brows, oath papers affixed to their armour by serfs with hissing seal stamps. 
 	There is focus here, amid the clanging and the shouts, but an observer would see only disorder. Once each blessing is undertaken, the squad, brothers and neophytes mixed, leaps up with votive cries and jogs to the drop pods, another squad taking its place for prayer. 
 	The last few of the pods sway in loading claws tracking across the ceiling, dragging them out of their armoured storage hangars. Chains wider than Invictus Potens’s shoulders rattle as the pods are lowered into position over their launch tubes. The noise is deafening. Auto-worshippers recite endless prayers from metal mouths. Thunderhawk engines whine up and down, and tanks grumble into position. Loading claws bang. Sirens, klaxons, machines, servitors, brothers… All the holy tumult of war’s preparation.
 	Apothecary Hengist–
 	Error.
 	Apothecary Clovis leads me to my drop pod. My feet are heavy on the deck. Brother and serf alike bow their heads and clasp swords reversed in front of them as I stride past. I am a Chapter Ancient, a living relic. In the honour of my entombing, they see an echo of the Emperor himself. It is an analogy I am not worthy of. I do not deserve such veneration.
 	The drop pod is freshly painted, bedecked with seals that will soon burn away. Invictus’s name plate is attached to the front.
 	The Eternal Crusader shakes, under the tread of armoured feet, under the fury of ork bombardment, under the pressure of our zeal. This is a full combat drop. An armada of ork vessels assail our flagship outside. We go about our business without fear. The Eternal Crusader is strong and our faith is stronger still. The Emperor protects his son’s sons. Praise be.
 	I enter my pod. As the ramps rise, one of our lay preachers shouts out our battle cry: ‘No pity! No remorse! No fear!’ He, like all the serfs, is armed and armoured. The lowliest of them are capable warriors. Such is our way. There is no room for weakness. Any who can bear arms are expected to do so, no matter their station.
 	It is silent in the pod. I wait. If it were not for my chronometer, I would not know how long. Time has lost its meaning, like so much else. I do not sleep outside of my hibernation. But I meditate, upon my purpose, upon the Emperor’s will, upon the Endless Crusade, and I give thanks that I am still a part of it.
 	Praise be.
 	A chime, generated directly in my mind by the sacred technologies of my glorious tomb, announces the setting of the mission chrono. A second time count appears beneath my chronometer. It blinks red three times, counts down to zero, turns green and begins running forward. It is this alone that alerts me to my imminent drop.
 	A slight shift in my mass centre. I am moving into the drop chute. There is a burst of noise from the escape thrusters. I feel heavy, my flesh body moves in my amniotic fluid, and for a moment I feel with my old skin. The pain intensifies as I shift.
 	Only for a moment.
 	Acceleration is constant. I am falling through the atmosphere. They woke us all, Brother Clovis told me. An unusual move. Across Armageddon, seven of my dead brothers are marching to war again. Three crusades have been established. War wracks the entire system and a good part of this sector. The ork invasion here is of a staggering scale.
 	I am impatient to join the fight. I have slept too long.
 	The drop is short, and ends with terrible force. Again, my body moves within the fluids that protect it. I recall similar drops from my other life, when I was a man of flesh and blood. Then the blow of landing jarred every bone in my body. Now I am protected from the worst of it, numbed to it. I am distant from every sensation, and move as if in a dream. Only the pain is constant, curled around me in my tomb, intimately embracing my shattered body.
 	The doors blow outwards. Pale light falls across Invictus’s metal hull. Ahead of me is an ugly ork fortress, an asteroid landed directly on the surface of the world. The land here is dry but not the driest – sub-savannah, low thorny trees and grey grass, all parched. A lush landscape by Armageddon’s standards. All is caked with ash. The Season of Fire has recently drawn to a close. The weather is calming, not that you would guess it. The Season of Shadows has begun.
 	It is my task to aid in the rock’s destruction. A worthy task. Battle rages already. I stride into it with great joy in my heart. Praise be!
 	‘Praise be!’ roars Invictus Potens.
 	Drop pods fall from the sky all around me, igniting the scrubby vegetation with their braking jets. I am one of the first, the spearhead of the Ash Wastes Crusade second group! Praise be! Fifty-six battle-brothers, forty-nine neophytes. Various armour assets are being landed further out, under Thunderhawk air support. All this and other information scrolls along the edges of my sensorium. Bright flashes and war-lightning show through the ash-tainted sky: the Void Crusade embattled in orbit. As above, so below.
 	Cantus Maxim Gloria is with me, emerging from his own drop pod sixty-three metres to my right. He is already firing, mass-reactive shells flaring as they accelerate away from the storm bolter slung under his arm.
 	I never knew him as a brother. What his name was is a mystery to me. He is and always will be Cantus Maxim Gloria, and that is how the other brothers see me. Not as Sword Brother Adelard, once-Marshal, but as Invictus Potens.
 	Am I Invictus? Or am I still Adelard? I no longer know who I am. It does not matter. Only the will of the Emperor is important. His will is that I serve. Praise be.
 	I seek targets of my own as I stride towards Cantus Maxim Gloria. Boxes and circles blink around the rock, highlighting potential threats, mission priorities and points of strategic interest. I determine a mob of screaming xenos, coming at us quickly, to be of the most immediate threat. Invictus continues to walk towards Cantus, but I pivot his torso and my sarcophagus ninety degrees to draw a line upon the aliens. By will alone, I discharge my storm bolter. The recoil of it, so slight on the great arm of my glorious tomb, feels sublime. War is the greatest act of worship, and I perform it gladly for our Lord. 
 	Several orks are destroyed. The rest scatter for cover.
 	More drop pods are coming in to land. Fifteen are on the field. It seems all have made it down. Doors blow open and Black Templars emerge, covered by the storm bolters and deathwind launchers of their insertion craft. Controlled by machine-spirits, these switch back and forth with mechanical swiftness and precision, felling orks as my brothers form up for the assault.
 	The rock is seventy-nine point four metres at its highest point, an alien cliff-face dropped on the landscape like a pebble tossed by a careless giant. Steel doors and shutters cover its apertures. They slide back and the wide muzzles of ork guns are pushed out. Orks pour down from ramps and ladders, orks scream atop the battlements along its craggy top. I am surprised at how untouched the landscape appears around it. No scorching of the vegetation, no impact crater. A delicate descent.
 	Orks are remarkable creatures, a survivor race. I have fought them in swamps, forests, deserts, hives, snow, the sea and the void. They infest them all equally. Their success makes them all the more despicable. They are brutish, violent, inimical to all order and impervious to sense. I respect them and I hate them. I kill all the enemies of man with satisfaction, but I particularly enjoy killing orks. Praise be.
 	‘We go forwards,’ says Cantus. I let him advance ahead of me, to absorb the fire raining down on us from the walls of the rock. Six Centurions fall in behind us. We are the breaching party. Our brothers lay down suppressive fire where they can. It is not our preferred way of combat and they will be envious of our advance.
 	As we approach, I kill many orks with my storm bolter, but do not use my assault cannon, not yet. Its ammunition counter stands at full, a healthy dark green. Thirty thousand rounds are in my hoppers. A goodly number, but I will receive no more until the battle is over. ‘The Emperor rewards with victory he who counts his ammunition’, I recall a Chaplain saying. Which one, I cannot remember. I have known many.
 	We approach the gateway. Cantus Maxim Gloria’s seismic hammer rises and comes alive.
 	I think back to the briefing. Three crusades, all bearing fresh names for the campaign – Helsreach, left behind by Helbrecht some months ago under Reclusiarch Grimaldus, the freshly instituted Ash Wastes under Marshal Ricard and Marshal Amalrich. Lastly, the Void Crusade, under High Marshal Helbrecht himself. We have arrived late to this war. We must pay for that with the blood of the foe.
 	I had never met Helbrecht before yesterday. I have the logos memorandum replay part of his speech.
 	‘A victory is required. Morale demands it. Too many have died in this system already. The orks believe their fortresses inviolable, but worse, the warriors of the Imperium come to think of them that way also. The Salamanders enjoy some early success, but we too shall prove the case to be contrary. Let the orks taste the wrath of the Black Templars,’ he said. ‘We shall not leave all the glory to the Salamanders! Let strike the true believers, the hammer of the Emperor. The sons of Dorn!’
 	I hear he is a man of great temper and exceptional skill at arms. He seems worthy of his position.
 	Cantus Maxim Gloria approaches the door to the rock, wide and high. The orks build roughly, and this door is no exception. But it is strong.
 	‘I will provide ingress,’ he booms. ‘Support me.’
 	His mighty seismic hammer sets to work, jerking forward, reeling back, bashing at the door relentlessly. The attached meltagun scours into the metal. Centurions join him, their siege drills chewing holes the size of plates, twists of swarf falling around their feet. I imagine the stink of hot metal. Bullets, missiles and many rocks bounce from our armour. I slay where I can, not a great tally here. The angles are poor.
 	A bright lance beam hits one of the Centurions, cutting downward through his neck into his body. My brother inside is killed, his Centurion suit locking his corpse in place. I have Invictus step backwards, tilting his torso back. I put myself at risk doing so, but this outrage must be avenged. Invictus’s sophisticated targeting systems pick out the one responsible, a burly ork hefting some incomprehensible energy weapon on a jutting bastion above. For the first time that day, I let the assault cannon speak. The barrels whine and pick up speed. It is operating at optimum efficiency. The rites have been performed diligently.
 	A stream of bullets spark from the rock, sending gravel pattering down onto the breaching party. The orks above are driven back, and the assault from above peters out. I cannot see if I have slain the burly gunner. Invictus’s readings are inconclusive.
 	The doors burst inwards with a resounding boom, one ripped so roughly from its housing that it forces out a small avalanche of rock. Cantus rips at the remains with his power fist. Then we are inside.
 	From that moment on, my assault cannon is not silent.
 	We wade through a sea of howling green faces, into a laby­rinth of roughly hewn rock and abominable machines. These mechanisms the Centurions destroy. None can stand before us – our armour is proof against the crude axes and firearms of the orks. Cantus and I smash them down with impunity. We are surrounded, but that is of no consequence. Our mission goal is close.
 	Pain is my companion. The pain is constant, all encompassing. Death’s legacy, a reminder that I no longer live, my gift from the Emperor and one I willingly share with these orks. A plasma burst from a xenos weapon ended my last actions as a Space Marine. I remember the heat of it, my flesh burning under my armour – agony, agony, agony searing out my eyes. They never told me, once I had been entombed, how much of me was left. We prayed, we celebrated, but we did not speak of my injuries. I have determined, after five centuries in this armour, that very little of my body survived. One arm. My upper torso. Most of my head. Perhaps my face still sits on my skull. Perhaps not.
 	The pain I feel now is nothing to the pain I felt then. But it is with me, always. I let it fuel my anger, I bless the bolts of our gun with it, it launches each blow of Invictus Potens’s fist, lends its fury to the spinning barrels of the assault cannon. This weapon, such a weapon! It clears corridors of greenskins in an eyeblink, leaving their remains to slide from the walls.
 	Warning. Ammunition at fifty per cent.
 	I check the ammunition counter. It is now orange. Fourteen thousand three hundred and sixty-one rounds left, but I cannot afford to slow down. There are thousands of orks here. I blow them to pieces, crush them underfoot, smash them down. Skulls crack in my giant’s hand. So many of them die, die, die, but always there are more.
 	‘We near the mission point,’ says Cantus. ‘Stand ready.’
 	We burst through another armoured door, into a large cavity at the heart of the fortress.
 	‘Here,’ he says, striding forwards. He is authoritative. I wonder who he was when he lived. A marshal perhaps? A castellan? He may have been a simple brother. Death changes a man.
 	The Centurions are behind us, walking backwards to cover our vulnerable rear plating. The systems array informs me that there are four of them left; where the other fell I did not see. There are many doors here. All of them are opening. Hundreds of orks swarm within.
 	‘Activating teleport beacon,’ says Cantus. The module mag-locked to his rear armour begins to blink with unhurried blue light. I carry one also, as do the Centurions. Multiple redundancy. We activate them all. It is a signal. Outside, the remainder of the Ash Wastes Crusade will be readying themselves, singing the Pugno Gloriosa Mundi, ready to rush into the rock.
 	There are over nine hundred orks in the chamber, according to Invictus’s best estimate. Many are of the larger kind, leaders and specialists. I highlight these and commit their positions to Invictus’s targeting memory.
 	‘Stand firm,’ I say.
 	The orks stand, staring at us, roaring at us, making their crude threat displays, but make no move against us, until one, a huge beast, moves out from the crowd and bellows a long challenge. It is taken up by the others, and they charge.
 	My assault cannon speaks until it has run out of words. Thereafter I use its red-hot barrels to brand orks with the mark of death. It is a holy mark, but no absolution comes with it, only annihilation.
 	A group of orks armed with large explosive charges and crude missiles come shoving through the crowd. I raise Invictus’s storm bolter, but that too is empty. Red mars the green of my systems array – no ammo, overheating, dropping fuel.
 	They charge towards Cantus Maxim Gloria. I interpose myself to save him, and doom myself.
 	They are all over my tomb, slapping charges to its limbs. One swings its strange rocket hammer at me, but I catch him, engulfing head and shoulders in Invictus’s fist, rendering them into a pulp.
 	There is a dim blue glow coming from the centre of the room. Greasy smoke smears the air. Shapes form. Marshal Ricard and Sword Brothers in Terminator armour step out from the light. Our mission is a success. But it is too late for me.
 	There is an explosion on Invictus’s lower portions, then another. The ground rushes up at me as he falls. My tomb’s pain arrests me, but it is feeble compared to my own, and is quickly over.
 	Warning. Warning. Warning. Systems compromised. Await aid. Fortitude is the ultimate fortress.
 	There follows a long list of damaged machinery. Blinking red text and runes. All I see beyond them is the gritty floor. I do not read it. I do not need to read it. There is another explosion, this time upon Invictus’s back. Shortly after, the systems array blinks and goes out, never to come again. I lose my connection with Invictus entirely.
 	I am left in the dark with my pain.
 	My fluid is pouring out through the crack in my sarcophagus. Invictus is sorely injured, but my brothers will slaughter every ork that stands between they and he, even if the greenskins are a million in number. Invictus will fight again. I, however, will not. 
 	I pray.
 	I realise that I can still hear the sounds of battle, the hymns of my brothers, the triple bark of bolt rounds being expelled, igniting, exploding. I smile, or attempt to. I hear with my own ears for the first time in five centuries – the final time.
 	I do not know what to expect next. It strikes me as amusing that I actually expect something more, that I assume the procession of events cannot end. That is why humanity is so indomitable. Even dying, we do not stop. Perhaps, as a race, we die even now, and my situation is analogous in miniature to the situation of every man, woman and child of our species: awaiting the next event, when there is only death. 
 	I will never know if this is the case or not. I have faith that mankind will prevail. If I have no faith, what do I have? Defeat. I have faith. Even as I die I know victory.
 	These are my thoughts: What happens to us when we die? Does the Emperor wait for me, whole in spirit as he no longer is in life, to call me to his side and sit with him at the table? Will it simply end? There is no golden light, no sense of impending doom, no terrifying sensation. No comfort either.
 	The last of the fluid has gone, exposing my skin to the air. I am aware now, of how little of me there is left, trapped in this glorious tomb. Things tug at my flesh, the pipes and cables of Invictus’s interface. A terrible chill grips me. I struggle with the urge to breathe, but I have no lungs. The oxygen levels in my blood are dipping dangerously low. My skin crawls as my remaining genetic gifts, the Emperor’s holy boon that made me into a Space Marine – broken things now – struggle to keep me alive. Too late, too late. The final journey approaches.
 	Consciousness recedes. I have felt little emotion since the day I was entombed. Pride, zeal, courage, honour – all come back to me as I die, and I am grateful to feel them again. The day I was chosen to become a Black Templar. My elevation to Sword Brother. My days as a marshal. The battle on Vellinus, the reaving of the Cemetery Worlds, the misguided Passion of The False Saint Cleon, the hunting of the Ork Wyrd. All ended in blood and death. Brusc, Oberon, Danifer, Theilred, Chardin… So many faces I have known, all going into the black. A million deaths by my hand. If not all were righteous, most were. I can ask for no more than that. Was it not blessed Artemisia who said ‘Better a thousand good men die than one traitor go free’?
 	Older memories, long neglected, resurface. Golden light, a man’s laughter. My father, perhaps. A rare moment of peace on my benighted homeworld. He pushes me on a swing, a rope on a tree branch over the only safe water for kilometres. I am shrieking with fright at how high and fast he is pushing me. He pushes harder. 
 	‘Be brave, Kellon!’ he shouts. ‘Be brave!’ I shriek louder, a boy’s squeals. He reminds me of how brave I am when the gentar reptiles come. I am already inured to death, already a warrior, but it does not prevent my shrill cries, a little fear, but mostly pleasure. He mocks me fondly for it. ‘I have been brave for all my days!’ I shout in my boy’s voice. ‘I have known no fear!’ But he is a memory and cannot hear.
 	I close my eyes, I listen to that laughter. Four years after this I had no father, and no home, but that is yet to come. Such pleasure: simple, potent, and pure. So different to the holy joys of battle, so different to the raptures of worship. There is no aim to it, no reason – it simply is. I wonder what my life would have been had I not trekked to the keep, if I had not undertaken the trial. I think this, only for an instant, Lord, but I think it. Forgive me this last sin, O Emperor.
 	The air of my youth is warm but I am cold. A shadow comes, dimming the sun. My father does not notice. I try to get his attention. Still he does not hear, trapped as he is in the past. It is fitting, perhaps, for the past is all I have. The final curtain is drawing over my life. I have fought well, have I not, O Master of Mankind? My toil is over, and I go gladly to my reward.
 	Despite my faith, I am afraid I will not be heard.
 	But praise be! Thanks to the Emperor, he hears me! He hears me! There comes a last blessing. The cold recedes. I am warm. I am free. I turn to tell the fading vision of my past, calling out in joy to the shadows in the thickening dark.
 	‘The pain is gone,’ I cry. ‘The pain is gone!’
 	++ Appended Black Templars Forge note, 987721/3/2 AA/LIF/5538 Dreadnought Chassis ‘Invictus Potens’ internal datalogue. Brother Adelard Logos Memorandum records cease. ‘Invictus Potens’ recovered. ++
 	++ Praise be. ++