Chapter 201: A Chapter Closes
Click—
The sealing mechanism of the metal sarcophagus scraped harshly as it opened, and cryogenic fluid dripped onto the deck. Fabius Bile's eyes snapped open, his artificial pupils contracting to pinpricks in the dim laboratory. The bitter taste of culture fluid filled his throat.
"Father, you're awake." Melusine had been watching a hololithic projection of Fulgrim. Hearing the sound, she turned and hurried to Fabius, who was pulling himself out of the stasis-pod, and draped a robe over his shoulders.
"Prepare the ritual. Contact the Black Legion. I need to go out," Fabius said, tightening the robe and beginning to gather his instruments. His hand froze in mid-air. He frowned, his gaze fixed on an empty numbered slot in the rack. He didn't remember using that set of gene-extractors recently—they should have been locked in sterile cabinet number seven.
"Father, but didn't you just leave with the army the Despoiler sent?" Melusine asked, confused.
"?"
Bile turned his head, a question in his eyes. Melusine quickly pulled up the surveillance logs and handed them to him.
CRACK!
An instrument in his hand, a glass construct glowing with a purple light, fractured under his grip. Staring at the operational logs his daughter had given him, Fabius's murky eyes contracted violently.
He... forgot?
Aboard the Consecrators' battle barge.
"What in the warp happened?" Ezekiel clutched his head. He couldn't remember anything from the moment they had made planetfall.
"Do you know what I have been doing?" he demanded of the Knight-Captain before him. The knight looked equally confused.
"I do not know, my Lord." The Knight-Captain shook his head and, as ordered, handed over his operational data-slate.
Click~
The Librarian snatched the slate and inserted it into the reader on his helmet, watching the entire recording. Receive orders, break the Chaos defensive line, achieve victory, then return. He had done this countless times before. Everything that had happened on the planet's surface unfolded before his eyes. They had reclaimed the world. Using intelligence provided by the forge-city's Magos and with the assistance of the Carcharodons and Mantis Warriors, they had assaulted the Chaos fortress. Then, their forces had completed the assault, withdrawn under the command of Chapter Master Azrael, and the Chapter had used the frigate's firepower to completely obliterate all traces of their presence, leaving the final clean-up to the Dawnlight Fleet.
A standard Dark Angels operational procedure.
'This is no coincidence. There is a secret here.'
Ezekiel grabbed the Knight-Captain, his eyes cold. In the recording, there was only snow and the enemy. Ezekiel cross-referenced it with the combat logs. There were alterations. The work of the Inner Circle. No problem!
A silent cry of alarm went off in Ezekiel's mind. After waving the Knight-Captain away, he clutched his own forehead. Why can't I remember?! Where are my memories?
"Grand Master Ezekiel!"
Before Ezekiel could figure it out, Azrael's voice came from the door.
"Enter."
'Azrael' pushed open the door, his gaze serious as he looked at Ezekiel. There was a faint hint of suspicion and wariness in his eyes, an emotion Ezekiel could read clearly. He suspects me.
"You met with many of the outer circle members," 'Azrael' stated bluntly.
Ezekiel said nothing, his mind racing. It took him a long moment to reply. "I needed to confirm their psychological well-being."
"The interrogation of the Fallen?" 'Azrael' asked. Seeing Ezekiel's silence, his tone grew more severe. "The Warband of a Thousand Eyes. How many more accomplices do they have? Who else is hiding among us?"
This sent a fresh wave of panic through Ezekiel. He did not remember interrogating any Fallen. 'Azrael' gripped the hilt of his sword. This Interrogator-Chaplain was ever thus, approaching every suspicion with the highest degree of zeal.
The temperature in the chamber dropped several degrees. Ezekiel lowered his eyes and began to search his own mind. His fingertips found a collection of books on the table.
Creak~
With a sickening sound, a hidden chamber was revealed. 'Just as I thought.' Ezekiel looked at the bodies inside. Cyraxes had been cleaved in two, his head shattered. Baelor had a single bolt-hole in his skull, a clean death.
But when did I interrogate them?
"They are dead, Grand Master," 'Azrael' said, his voice suddenly filled with excitement.
"Mm," Ezekiel replied flatly.
"You're not going to explain?" 'Azrael' pressed.
"You will know."
"When?" 'Azrael' continued to press.
"When you need to know."
'Azrael' asked no more questions, but simply stared intently at Ezekiel. Faced with 'Azrael's' gaze, Ezekiel's expression remained calm. The same old scrutiny. This zealous Chaplain was always like this. Fortunately, he hadn't revealed anything.
"I will report it at the Inner Circle council," he said. After a long moment, 'Azrael' relented and left. Ezekiel let out a breath and stared at the corpses. He remembered nothing. His memory stopped after his coordination with Romulus, and then he had woken up at this desk.
Should he have told 'Azrael' the truth? He didn't dare. He didn't dare to admit that he had a memory problem, that his knowledge of the surface operation was a complete blank. Just like during the Surathian Campaign, when he hadn't dared to tell the Grand Masters that his precognitive abilities were failing.
Because that would mean lies, corruption, disloyalty.
It was a secret. Information gathered from the warriors of the various Chapters began to weave itself together, forming a tangible memory, filling the void in his mind. With a psychic blast, he pulverized the two Fallen bodies, carefully erasing every last trace. A secret that must never be known.
[BY ORDER OF THE ROUND TABLE, THE FIREWING AND RAVENWING OF THE DARK ANGELS HAVE CONDUCTED AN INVESTIGATION INTO CONSECRATORS CHAPTER MASTER AZRAEL NERGÜI.
THE INVESTIGATION FINDS THAT, DURING HIS CAREER AS AN ASTARTES, AZRAEL NERGÜI HAS KILLED NINETEEN CONSECRATORS BATTLE-BROTHERS, ALL FOR THE REASON OF PRESERVING SECRETS. HE HAS KILLED TWELVE KNIGHTS OF CALIBAN, FOUR OF WHOM HAD FALLEN TO CHAOS, THE REMAINING EIGHT BEING INNOCENT, WITH UNKNOWN COLLATERAL DAMAGE TO OTHER FORCES.
HE HAS ENDANGERED THE UNITY OF THE DARK ANGELS LEGION, DEVIATED FROM THE PRINCIPLES ESPOUSED BY THE PRINCE, AND ENGAGED IN THE LONG-TERM UNLAWFUL KILLING OF HIS COMRADES, CAUSING GRAVE HARM.
IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE STATUTES OF THE ROUND TABLE, AFTER REVIEW AND DISCUSSION BY THE GRAND MASTERS OF THE ORDERS, AND SUBMISSION TO THE PRINCE FOR COUNCIL REVIEW, IT IS DECREED THAT CONSECRATORS CHAPTER MASTER AZRAEL NERGÜI IS HEREBY STRIPPED OF HIS RANK AND SENTENCED TO DEATH.]
The Silent Vow, Hall of the Round Table.
Listening to the long list of his crimes being read, Azrael sat in the center of the judgment seat, heavy shackles binding his limbs, every muscle trembling with rage. His gaze swept the hall. A full thousand Fallen Angels, fully armed, watched him in silence. Such a number... it would take most of the Inner Circle to purge them. Even now, he was thinking of how to destroy them.
"These are your crimes," Gareth said, finishing the reading, his face a cold mask as he looked at the beast before him. The council had debated and, in the end, had chosen him to read the sentence. Because of his calm. The others were afraid they would not be able to restrain themselves and would attack during the reading.
"Loyalty and honour are the will of the Dark Angels, the desire of all sons of the Lion," Azrael sneered, revealing blood-stained teeth.
Will? Desire? Gareth shook his head. He did not engage in a philosophical debate. This was not the time or place for a clash of words. He gripped the hilt of his sword and slowly drew the great blade of judgment.
A flash of cold steel.
A head rolled onto the floor, blood spattering the sigil of the Round Table. Death had come swiftly, without undue pain, and without any so-called redemption.
Gareth's gaze swept the hall. The Dark Angels, who had waited for the judgment to conclude, began to file out. Battle-automata dragged away Azrael's body. It would be incinerated to prevent any desecration. He then sheathed the sword in the dais of the judgment hall. Several other blades were already there. On each was inscribed the story of the executed: their crimes, their motives, their process—everything they had been as a Dark Angel. They would become a part of the Dark Angels' history, a warning to those who came after.
Gareth looked to a corner, where a group of half-grown boys were gathered, watching the execution. This was the Legion's new blood, its future. They were the elite from various worlds, humans who, under the tutelage of the Alpha Legion, possessed the ability to think independently. The Primarchs of the Hydra had always encouraged their sons to think for themselves, a tradition that had naturally been preserved in the loyalist factions even after ten thousand years. Even by the standards of the Dark Angels, they were exceptional humans. And so their lives should not be wasted on meaningless infighting.
The full context, the cause and effect, had all been made known to them. Understanding, scrutiny, indignation, doubt. A storm of emotions played across the boys' faces.
'But the hatred is gone,' Gareth thought. He now truly understood what the Prince wanted to do. The Legion would take in new blood. The Legion, under the Prince's supervision, would come to understand its history from an objective perspective. When they had finally infiltrated the Inner Circle and uncovered the whole truth, the legal and moral foundation for the Inner Circle's existence would naturally crumble.
The secrets would be made public, turned into history. Neither side would be the traitors. It would simply be a tragic, absurd story of self-destruction. What they would give to the Prince would be a new, reborn Dark Angels, without a past, led by the Prince himself. They would remember this history of fratricide, but they would no longer inherit the hatred that had spanned millennia.
They would be a truly glorious generation, one that could truly stand in the light and look back at the past in the proper way.
"... "
Having completed the trial, Arthur stood by the viewport, watching the Consecrators' fleet depart.
"Arthur?" Romulus's voice came over the comms.
"I'm here," Arthur replied. The knights around him looked on with curiosity, so Arthur simply put the call on speaker.
"Is the situation stable? Do you need anything from me?"
The first question made the Dark Angels' faces flush with shame. It was not just one Primarch who was worrying about them.
Romulus, though focused on Arthur's situation, did not slow his own work.
The Magos on the planet's surface was dead. The forge-city needed to be resettled.
The Chaos plot had been foiled, and all chaotic forces on the planet had been destroyed.
They had encountered a clone of Fabius Bile. Ramesses was currently trying to salvage what he could from the consciousness fragments, and had also wiped the clone's memory, greatly delaying the time until they were on Bile's radar.
The Consecrators Chapter was basically in their hands. Ezekiel, caught in a web of his own making by Ramesses, was busy trying to keep his own secrets. They could now begin the process of "blood transfusion" and gradually strengthen the Dawnbreakers' control over the Dark Angels.
Ezekiel's life had been spared because he was strongly connected to a stable time-travel event in 912.M41. The Dawnbreakers intended to use the temporal distortion from the destruction of Caliban to verify some things.
Although there had been a number of disturbances, they had all been handled perfectly.
"No, it is not needed," Arthur replied.
"So you have it under control?" Romulus said with a laugh. He actually agreed with Arthur's plan. One was a group that had been steeped in blood from its very inception, growing more fanatical over ten thousand years of keeping secrets. The other was a group of warriors who had endured numerous blows and had not surrendered to either Chaos or reality. Which side to choose? It was never a choice.
"Of course," Arthur replied, then looked at the knights behind him and smiled. Set the standard, draw the line, establish a correct understanding, and follow a standardized process. These knights were finally no longer so easily provoked. He, too, was changing things.
"My part in this is done for now. I will worry about it later," Arthur said. "First, let's deal with the Tyranids."
"Indeed," Romulus agreed, continuing to look through his data-slates. Let's finish this fight, find a homeworld, and establish a stable rear base. The more we fight, the more conflicts arise. Who can stand it?
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