After their homeworld was destroyed by the Wolves, the Thousand Sons came to a world of constant change.
Many called it Sortiarius the World of Nine Suns, yet the radiant stars that coursed overhead waxed and waned unpredictably.
Scholars of inertia proposed name after name, but the corresponding astronomical phenomena would shift each time, rendering their freshly chosen labels utterly meaningless.
In the end, they were forced to adopt the most direct name to describe it, the Planet of the Sorcerers.
A gilded, monumental pyramid floated in the sky, its countless gears rolling endlessly across its surfaces.
Aetheric lightning spread and grew; within the branded psychic vortices, daemonic shadows of the warp feasted gluttonously.
Thousands of manta-rays with razor-sharp wings, glittering with jeweled hues, swept past to the sound of melodious song, stirring up aetheric storms.
Aetheric storms and explosive lightning blasted the planet's surface into perpetual transformation.
Towering pitch-black mountains rose, then collapsed and shattered.
Whispering jungles turned to ash in an instant.
Only the flute-like towers scattered across the land endured, each spire shaped by the Thousand Sons' aetheric might and transcendent will.
Yet they never maintained a fixed form, nor remained in one place.
Some were built of steel and glass; others of crystal and stone.
Ahzek Ahriman, Magister Templi of the Corvidae Cult, had raised a spiraling white-stone structure, but during his brief absence, it had become an ugly fusion of polygonal shapes.
Its interior had been twisted into a labyrinth, filled with doorways to nowhere, endless corridors, and stacked sorcerous chambers.
At the tower's summit, Ahriman paced slowly, carving runes with a ritual knife.
The floor was of polished basalt, inscribed with nine concentric rings.
Hathor Maat, Magister Templi of the Pavoni Cult, and Uthizzar, Magister Templi of the Athenaen Cult, stood at opposite ends in their fellowship hooded robes, scattering silver powder into the ring-grooves from within outward.
At the center of the grooves stood a frost-covered crystal casket, within which lay Ahriman's beloved Practicus, Sobek.
His terror-stricken face had been frozen by Pavoni arts and cutting-edge technology.
Apothecary Pahnsu knelt beside the casket's control panel, his Narthecium gauntlet linked to the internal systems.
"The protective circle is complete," Uthizzar said, brushing off the remaining powder.
Pahnsu flipped a switch, the indicator light shifted from green to yellow.
"The internal medical systems are set to take over the moment the stasis field dissolves."
"If you cannot halt the mutation, I will ensure he receives a merciful release, rather than the agony of the Pyrae's flames."
Ahriman's raven cloak was studded with protective talismans: agates from the Reflection Cave, a wooden eye carved from a Levantine sail, wax seals from the Book of Wonders, and fragments of the crimson robes woven by the prophetesses of Iyalavo.
"It will not come to that."
"I have foreseen it, we will succeed."
Ahriman moved to Hathor's right; Uthizzar stood on the other side.
"Ascend to the second level of the Enumeration, we will need instantaneous thought-transmission," Uthizzar said to Hathor.
"As I understand it, we must be swift."
Hathor nodded. The "Dreamwalker" ascended to the second level of the Enumeration while skillfully isolating the deeper recesses of his mind.
The three Magister Templi raised their hands in unison, torrents of aetheric energy poured into the silver protective ring.
The hazy, watery vision shimmered. Pahnsu pressed his hand to the gene-lock on the crystal casket's side, and the stasis field dissolved.
Sobek's eyes snapped open, filled with terror, he looked pleadingly at Ahriman.
"Save me!"
"Quickly!" Hathor shouted.
"I am the key, the path connecting your minds," Uthizzar whispered.
Hathor felt his mind interweave with Ahriman's and Uthizzar's.
He glimpsed a flicker of jealousy in Ahriman, jealousy that Ahriman had gained their father's favor and become Chief Librarian.
He glimpsed the deep anxiety in Uthizzar's heart, as more and more Thousand Sons were succumbing to flesh-change.
"We are one," Uthizzar's voice sounded from the depths of their minds.
The Athanaean psychic power acted like an icy conduit, linking the Pavoni's biomancy with the Corvidae's precognitive sight.
A piercing shriek erupted, Sobek's body thrashed, struggling to break free of Hathor's hold.
Ahriman detached himself from the present, his mind wholly focused on Sobek.
His flesh immediately grew restless, eager to break free from the rigidity of form.
He suppressed the mutation-urges that rose unbidden in his mind, focusing on the genetic chaos within Sobek, tracking the billionfold threads of fate branching outward.
From each mutation, a million possibilities emerged, growing exponentially every second.
Ahriman saw countless horrific futures: Sobek covered in tumors, his skin splitting open.
Sobek sprouting wings, a form caught between bird and reptile.
Ahriman cast aside hundreds of thousands of fate-threads at a blinding pace.
Each nightmare-vision, filled with piercing shrieks, carved terrible wounds into his mind.
Every blood-drenched death-vision was an ordeal, and a precious lesson to save Sobek.
If one Thousand Son could be saved, all could be saved.
"Give me something useful," Hathor said, sweat beading on his forehead.
"I haven't found it yet." Ahriman could not keep up with the branching threads.
He had already filtered out nine million potential futures, but the remaining possibilities were still vast.
"I can't hold on much longer." Hathor's marble-like face turned pale.
Suddenly, Ahriman's eyes lit up, he saw a genetic restructuring method, and Sobek's face showed a smile of relief.
The solution surged into Hathor's mind, biochemical energy poured into the deepest layers of Sobek's physiology.
Cells were dismantled and rebuilt; the very foundation of existence was reshaped.
The Pavoni arts tore Sobek apart and remade him.
Ahriman saw fate's course diverted, each adjustment Hathor made gave rise to new possibilities, the number of fatal outcomes plummeting geometrically.
"We're almost there!"
Sobek's fate grew clearer with each passing second. Biomancy had altered the genetic code written by the Emperor himself.
Bang!
Hathor collapsed to his knees, exhausted.
Ahriman dispelled the lingering afterimages of countless fate-threads from his aetheric sight. He had never witnessed such horrors, but those futures would not come true.
"Pahnsu?"
Pahnsu's Narthecium remained linked to the internal medical systems. "All vitals are at dangerous levels, but he is still alive."
"We succeeded!" Ahriman shouted in astonishment.
Sobek suddenly raised his head, and a voice not his own came from his throat: "All… is… dust…"
The runes exploded into aetheric fire all at once.
Sobek's muscles tore; cartilage snapped with sharp cracks; a furnace-like heat surged from his throat.
Blazing fire forced Pahnsu to disconnect and retreat swiftly.
Flames scorched his face black; crimson light gathered in his wide-staring eyes.
His bones melted and cracked in the terrible transformation; his scream battered the minds of the Thousand Sons.
"No!" Ahriman cried in grief.
Sobek let out one last piercing wail, a pitiful cry that echoed across the Planet of the Sorcerers.
Fine dust poured from the cracks of his shattered armor, forming two small mounds around his boots, then spilled out, scattered by a wind that rose from nowhere.
"This is not his fate," Ahriman said in disbelief.
"I saw his flesh remade… I saw him healed."
"My son, you were deceived." Magnus's voice suddenly rang out.
Hathor looked toward the Obsidian Tower where Magnus had remained hidden, appearing once more after the Burning of Prospero.
He wore a golden robe and feather-cloak, his skin crimson, his gaze sharp.
"Father… I failed."
Magnus's single eye gleamed with crimson light. "I should destroy you on the spot, punish your betrayal, make you pay for Sobek's life."
Ahriman held his head high. "When you abandoned us to death, I took it upon myself to save their lives."
"If that is betrayal, then do as you will."
'He has no other recourse, only the Black Emperor can suppress the flesh-change.' Hathor recalled how, on the journey to Prospero, the Black Emperor had saved him from mutation.
"You have indeed erred, but Amon needs you," Magnus said.
"We will go to the Obsidian Tower at once," Hathor said.
Amon came from the Corvidae Cult, he must have foreseen something, and it was important to their father.
"No, you must go to the ruins of Tizca."
"A part of me departed from there, I can no longer sense his presence."
....
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