Since his return, Perturabo had never once encountered the Second or Eleventh Legion — not even a rumour. Not a whisper.
Truthfully, he was genuinely curious about what those two Legions and their Primarchs could possibly have done to cause the Imperium to erase every record of their existence.
The Second Primarch should have been the second to return. Yet the Imperium's written records listed Russ as the second. And when Perturabo had asked — even Horus, the First-Returned, had said his memories of that brother and his Legion were hazy and indistinct. Whenever he tried to recall too much, a momentary blankness would come over him, and then the memories would slip away again.
This had only made Perturabo more curious. Given the current sensitivity of the political situation, he wanted to get ahead of every unstable variable he could identify.
He needed to understand what had driven Malcador to personally intervene — to suppress Horus while he was wearing his anti-psychic armour with Sisters of Silence at his side. And after Dorn had learned the truth and stormed in furiously, he had ultimately fallen silent after his memories were restored and asked Malcador to seal them away again.
The Eleventh Legion's records should have followed Corax's, but the Eleventh now had no records at all.
Why had the Emperor and Malcador erased two entire Legions?
Perturabo urgently needed the answer. Was there another brother being held somewhere in the Shadow Cells beneath the Terran Palace?
If so, then why — in the period from the 32nd to 42nd millennia in his memory — had they never released him, even to stabilise a deteriorating situation?
Was there truly something worse than the Imperium gradually rotting from within?
Then just how severe were those two brothers' problems?
Perturabo needed answers. And only the Emperor and Malcador knew the full truth — perhaps not even Valdor knew the whole picture.
"So. What exactly happened with the Second? And those two Legions — were they erased by you, or what?"
Perturabo had reduced his size and sat across from Malcador. The Emperor's psychic projection hovered nearby, listening.
"Why do you suddenly want to ask about them? And why summon your Father here specifically?"
"Because I need to know why. And because I want to take precautions. The results of the Great Crusade have been hard-won — I'm not prepared to see them undone by something unexpected and avoidable."
"Breaking order is considerably easier than building and maintaining it. And order tends to collapse at the most unassuming details — the Sol System rebellions being the perfect example."
Malcador and the Emperor exchanged a glance. Perhaps because of Perturabo's position, or perhaps because they had genuinely made their peace with it — either way, they were willing to speak.
"The Second is currently imprisoned in the Shadow Cells. The Second and Eleventh Legions have been erased, but we retained certain Astartes and distributed them among other Legions. Their memories were of course altered — they believe they have always belonged to those Legions."
"Which Legions were they distributed to?"
"The Imperial Fists, the Ultramarines, and the Salamanders. In terms of physical appearance and numbers, those three Legions offered the best conditions for concealment."
"Do Dorn, Guilliman, and Vulkan know?"
"After erasing their memories, we also made certain other adjustments. So as far as those extra sons are concerned, at most they vaguely feel that some of the Terran-born warriors seem slightly different from those who came from their homeworlds. Nothing more."
"But the headcount — that's a different problem entirely. Even several hundred extra men can't appear from nowhere. Dorn and Vulkan I can perhaps believe, but how did you get this past Guilliman? Or did you reduce those two Legions to the point where not even a few hundred remained?"
"No. The Ultramarines received the largest number — twenty-two thousand in total, the majority from the Second Legion. They tended toward impulsive temperaments, somewhat similar to the old War Hounds. Most of them were compiled by Roboute into the Twenty-Second Company and assigned to prosecute necessary evils."
"How did you actually manage it?"
"Your Father personally adjusted Roboute's memories to the maximum extent possible. He also spent a considerable period conducting psychic self-suggestion on this psychically null individual to prevent him from questioning the additional sons. The timing worked in our favour — it happened to coincide with the period when his Legion had suffered heavily at the hands of the Osiran xenos. We used that to cover the discrepancy."
"And Dorn and Vulkan?"
"The Imperial Fists, because of Dorn's influence, have a culture of self-punishment, which makes some of its sons quiet and withdrawn. The Eleventh Legion's Astartes, partly due to their augmentation, shared certain traits with the Imperial Fists in this regard. We placed those seven thousand men in the Seventh Legion. Dorn didn't question the warriors who were most enthusiastic about self-mortification."
"As for Vulkan — he and the Salamanders are the most gentle-natured. We used the pretext of a fleet returning from distant campaigns to introduce several hundred additional men. Nobody remembered whether there had been a fleet out on an extended deployment, but these warriors shared the same build and colouring as the Salamanders, and had the same warmth toward mortals. They integrated quickly and without issue, so Vulkan never questioned it."
"So you just erased two entire Legions and split them up? And you went to all that trouble keeping them alive? I expected you to be rather more brutal about it."
Perturabo looked at them both, somewhat surprised that they still had a conscience.
"The Thunder Warriors had far worse defects than any of this, and even those who simply laid down their weapons and accepted their circumstances were allowed to survive. Why would these Astartes deserve less?"
"Then what about the Second and the Eleventh themselves? Leave the Eleventh for now — what actually went wrong with the Second?"
"You're aware that after your Father created each of you, he built specific abilities into each of your base-level genetic architecture?"
"Yes."
"The Second's ability was somewhat unusual. The first one we created was the First — and while the Lion appears volatile, stubborn, deeply suspicious and intimidating now, his ability and loyalty are beyond question. He's an all-rounder Primarch with no significant weaknesses. The First Legion was built from his gene-template."
"So what did you do to the Second?"
"That's your Father's fault."
Malcador's look toward the Emperor carried a distinct edge of grievance. The golden-skinned man turned away with evident guilt.
"You know about the Tech-Barbarians of old Terra?"
"Yes."
"What we wanted at the time was a Primarch and Legion capable of handling any recurrence of that kind of threat during the Great Crusade."
"If we're talking about the technological side, that would overlap with me and Ferrus. So the Second was the psychic side? Like Magnus? But then what was Russ for?"
"Which is precisely why I say your Father is to blame."
"He's a greedy man. When we created the First and were both somewhat euphoric at what we'd achieved, your Father didn't just want to build on that foundation — he decided to cram every interesting idea he had directly into the Second as well."
"Initially it was very successful. The Second was not only a powerful psyker, but showed remarkable performance in resisting Chaos specifically. The Astartes created from his gene-seed were uniformly fearless, with exceptional resistance to Warp corruption."
"Some didn't inherit their father's psychic intensity — which, as it turned out, was what allowed them to escape the subsequent purge, and they were reassigned to the Ultramarines. Several have already risen to senior positions."
"That sounds like it overlaps with Lorgar and the Word Bearers."
"The Seventeenth was essentially our continuation of the Second's blueprint. But we hadn't anticipated how severe the Second's mutation would become."
"What do you mean?"
Perturabo looked at Malcador's resigned expression and the Emperor's regretful one.
"When we found the Second, he had already demonstrated extraordinary psychic talent and physical capability. But he was exhibiting serious mutation."
"Similar to the Thousand Sons' Flesh Change?"
"Worse."
"How much worse?"
Perturabo's brow furrowed.
"You've seen plenty of rogue daemons, haven't you?"
"Don't tell me that in the years since the Second returned, he mutated into something like that."
"More or less. Born essentially as a Warp-touched creature to begin with, he physically transformed within just a few years until he was virtually indistinguishable from the daemons. At the time, the entire Second Legion was suffering from severe Flesh Change as a result of his presence."
"You know how sensitive anything involving the Warp is — we couldn't publicise it. Not even the First Legion or the Custodians were deployed. Your Father personally suppressed the Second, then purged the Astartes whose mutations were beyond recovery. The sons who had not inherited the psychic gift were integrated into the Imperial Fists and the Ultramarines."
"And the Eleventh Legion?"
"By that point, following the growing success of the Second, your Father's confidence had become somewhat excessive. He continued producing Primarchs one after another through to the Tenth. Along the way he incorporated concepts of peak individual combat ability, defensive fortification, offensive strategy, innate knowledge, and so on — which is more or less what you see in your brothers now. And in yourself."
"So what did you incorporate into the Eleventh?"
Even bringing this up made Malcador angry. He snatched up his staff and aimed it at the Emperor's psychic projection, smacking it repeatedly — to no physical effect, since it was a projection — but the expression of frustration was evident regardless. The Emperor became increasingly guilty-looking.
"We had a significant argument at the time. You know how much all of us despise xenos, yes?"
Perturabo nodded. That was hardly remarkable — Vulkan enjoyed roasting xenos children over an open fire.
"So. Already riding high on having created all of you, and wanting to demonstrate what he'd achieved — your Father decided to incorporate the ability of consumption into the Eleventh. This would allow the Eleventh Primarch to absorb abilities from the bodies of enemies he devoured."
"Certain xenos are loathsome, but we have to acknowledge — some of their abilities are genuinely useful. Just looking at the Orks, the Rangdan, the Eldar under your command — every one of their abilities is formidable."
"Your Father's thinking was: since we're going to exterminate these xenos anyway, why not have us replicate their abilities for humanity's use? Wouldn't that be better?"
"Learn from the enemy to overcome the enemy?"
"Exactly. A fine idea in principle. But when you actually act on it — you eat those xenos, you gain their abilities, and then what are you? What have you become? Do you still count as human? What about your skull? Your genetics? Even the faintest outward resemblance to humanity?"
"Did you not consider any of this? It's fairly obvious."
Perturabo looked at the Emperor, who was hunched over poking at his fingers with visible embarrassment.
"Well — we had just created all of you, and being a little overconfident isn't so abnormal..."
Perturabo had no more patience for this. He teleported instantly, drew back his fist, and drove it squarely into the Emperor seated on the Golden Throne. Blood immediately poured from the Emperor's nostrils. Half the teeth on the left side of his mouth went flying. Then Malcador's staff came in from the right and removed the other half.
The Emperor, who had been happily eating hot pot and humming to himself moments ago, saw stars.
"So after the Eleventh was created, they consumed too many xenos across the galaxy, their biological structure mutated, and you cleared them. Is that it?"
"Not only physically. Some of them had already begun transforming into an entirely new form of xenos. Some had even fused parts of their power armour with xenos biological components, making them resemble a massive xenos organism."
"We had no choice but to purge those with the most severe mutations, and integrate the more lightly affected ones into the Ultramarines and Salamanders. The explanation we gave wasn't entirely wrong — there genuinely was a fleet that had been away on distant operations. Those Astartes had consumed a species of large xenos on a particular world."
"It left them considerably larger than average, with very dark skin, and some had grown black horns from their heads. We used certain methods to suppress the visible anomalies. Fortunately there were only a few hundred of them, and like the Salamanders they had great warmth toward ordinary people — the mutation had actually amplified their empathy — so they integrated without issue and without exposure."
"As for the Ultramarines side — some of those individuals, due to their temperament and the fact that their mutations were primarily physical, were mostly never suspected. Most were assigned to the Twenty-Second Company."
"So by the time you noticed something was wrong, it was already too late?"
"Yes. After your Father created the Fourteenth, the Second began showing mutation. That alarmed him considerably — after all, the Second was originally the one he'd created to eventually take his place on the Golden Throne. But with the Second no longer viable, there was nothing to do but make certain adjustments when creating the Fifteenth."
"So both Magnus and Lorgar were created as contingencies in case the Second failed?"
"More or less. That includes Horus as well — though creating Horus didn't go entirely as planned. After Magnus, we had originally intended to combine elements of the First and the Second to produce something more balanced."
"And the results were unsatisfactory?"
"Not exactly — though Horus is admittedly not particularly outstanding in either psychic ability or physical terms, and the Luna Wolves have always seemed to occupy an awkward middle ground."
"I will not have you speaking about my First-Returned that way! He is the best of all of you!"
The Emperor erupted, jumping up and making himself heard between the two of them — and being comprehensively ignored by both.
"The later Primarchs, I imagine you can more or less work out for yourself — they were largely created based on the templates we'd developed and our own developing philosophy."
"And Alpharius and Omegon? The twins?"
"Also something of an accident. We never anticipated their fundamental nature would split into two. At the time, I felt that the Imperium had covered all the necessary roles for its Primarchs — except for one who specialised in covert operations, infiltration, and intelligence-gathering across the Imperium. I discussed it with your Father, and we created them. We simply didn't expect two Primarchs to emerge."
Perturabo looked at these two extraordinary individuals — one a hidden genius, one a brilliant fool — and found himself at a loss for words.
"So the Eleventh may have by now actually become a xenos creature. And one that could potentially be a serious threat to the Imperium."
"He might also be benign."
The Emperor offered this quietly from the side.
"When the Eleventh is eventually found — do we move immediately, or take him in and figure something out after the Great Crusade ends?"
"That depends on his condition. If he can be subdued without resistance, like the Second — put into stasis and brought back. If not — then destruction is the only option."
"That's my brother!"
"Do you have a better suggestion? Reverse the process and make him human again? What, are you going to have him eat humans until he turns back? You could feed him an entire Hive World and probably still not accomplish that."
Perturabo and Malcador argued. Looking at this stubborn old man, Perturabo eventually conceded the point.
A Primarch was still formidable. There was no telling what the Eleventh had consumed over all these years, or what he had become — but given the extent of the records that had been erased from Perturabo's memory, he suspected the outcome wasn't promising.
"Anything else you want to know? Ask now while things are quiet."
"How did you come to the idea of creating us to conquer the galaxy in the first place?"
"That wasn't the original plan. The Thunder Warriors were cheap to produce and formidable — even the Tech-Barbarians gave them a wide berth."
"But their flaws were simply too severe. That was the result of insufficient planning on my part and your Father's. By the time I pulled him out of seclusion, the situation had already deteriorated to a point that was almost beyond salvage."
"Those of us involved practically had to be shoved together out of necessity. Even at that point, we didn't have a clear idea of what we were actually doing — we worked it out one step at a time."
"Eventually, as you know, we arrived at the idea of replacing the Thunder Warriors. We wanted something more stable — a form of genetic modification that could be produced at lower cost, with more reliable loyalty."
"And it was the Tech-Barbarians who led us to think about the Warp."
"So you made a deal with Chaos?"
"How else was your Father supposed to locate twenty sub-divine essences within the Warp on his own? All four cooperated."
"We needed powerful commanders for our Legions. They needed representatives — vessels through which they could manifest in the physical universe. And so a fragile, always-teetering alliance came into being."
"You clearly never intended to honour it."
"I deceived them through my own talent. Why should I pay back something I earned through wit? And let them prey on humanity? Absolutely not."
The Emperor was, as always, without shame.
This time, Perturabo didn't argue the point.
"The Custodians — when did you design them, and how did you develop the template for perfect humanity? I remember the creation of Valdor being a considerable undertaking?"
"You know about the Golden Age, I assume?"
"The Men of Gold?"
"Yes. I am somewhat young by the standards of Perpetuals — I happened to be born during humanity's most prosperous period. I saw those perfect humans firsthand."
"Honestly — they weren't that extraordinary. Not enormously powerful. Not truly 'perfect' in any meaningful sense. They simply had certain capabilities beyond ordinary mortals — comparable to what an Astartes has today. But their minds were vastly, incomparably more sophisticated."
"Their real strength lay in their creativity. Humanity in that era was powerful enough that even the Eldar empire — which had been ascendant since antiquity — avoided confrontation and retreated inside the Webway."
"The Custodians were modelled after them. But clearly — beyond the body — they compare favourably in no other respect. A Custodian is said to be supremely perfect and powerful, but I've never been entirely convinced. And their production cost is extraordinary."
"I argued against it at the time. I told your Father not to pour this many resources into a single elite formation. He didn't listen. It slowed us significantly during the Unification Wars and the early Crusade."
"And the question of gender as well — I had originally wanted to give you some sisters. It would have at least made guidance easier. But your Father's deeply rooted instincts kicked in, and he insisted on going against us. And now look — a group of emotionally stunted overgrown children, hardly any of them easy to manage."
"Your Father is the same — spending all day carrying on about his First-Returned, thirty years this and thirty years that. I think he's gone thoroughly besotted."
Perturabo found himself in complete agreement.
Ignoring the Emperor's spluttering indignation, the two of them raised their cups and touched them together lightly.
"The Astronomican technology — how did you develop that? And the Dark Age technology — how much have you actually retained? How much is hidden under the Terran Palace?"
"Mostly what you already know about. The Men of Iron are here, the Men of Stone as well, along with some extremely dangerous Dark Age technology — though nothing approaching the black hole bombs you deployed at Rangda."
"The Golden Age also had certain weapons based on timeline manipulation and causality, didn't it? How much of that did you keep?"
"Almost none. Most of it was destroyed during the Age of Strife. Those weapons are highly specific, and the conditions required to activate them are extremely demanding."
"In truth, they weren't as formidable as people imagine — otherwise, given how many enemies your Father made over the years, they could have eliminated him at the very beginning. Yet here he is, perfectly fine, while those enemies have gone through countless generations and died off."
"Fair point. So the most powerful surviving legacy of the Golden Age is ultimately the Men of Iron and the AI?"
"Yes. But you understand the problem — the scale of the risk is enormous. The moment they develop genuine self-awareness, the potential for catastrophe is something you should appreciate more than most. The only reason there hasn't been a second Iron Men Rebellion is that you've never pushed their intelligence to that level."
"That's not a concern. I have it under control. They cannot escape my oversight."
"The people of the Golden Age thought the same thing. Then the Iron Men Rebellion happened."
Perturabo went quiet and drained his cup.
Malcador was reflective. He had witnessed humanity's arc from its height to its fall. Compared to the Emperor — who was given to solitary, obsessive research — Malcador had been younger and more idealistic. He had wanted to go out and do something with it, to contribute something to humanity.
And then things had gone the way they had, and his ideals had fallen apart in the middle of the road.
Though he had, in the end, achieved something like what he'd wanted — in the very moment of its realisation, he'd already been looking for the exit.
But what could you do?
You choose the person. You choose the path. Even if you end up on your knees, you walk the whole road on your knees.
He hadn't expected the kneeling to last quite approximately four hundred years — until Perturabo took over the bulk of the administrative work and gave him his first taste of something resembling rest.
"I want to see the Second."
Perturabo made what was less a request than a statement.
"Come with me."
Malcador led the way. Perturabo and the Emperor followed.
The path into the Shadow Cells passed long-sealed Dark Age technology and several Men of Stone and Men of Iron — and, interestingly, what appeared to be a system not entirely unlike a Logis Engine, which Perturabo had to actively restrain himself from pocketing.
Throughout the entire walk, the Custodians' gaze never left them. The Emperor's presence had put every one of them at maximum vigilance.
"This is the Second?"
The Second Primarch was barely recognisable as a humanoid form inside the stasis field. The twisted, malevolent shape reminded Perturabo of the daemons he'd encountered — the ones with limbs and organs that seemed to have their own agendas.
"Yes. Before you returned, he was well-liked among your brothers. It's a tragedy that the mutation was this severe. There was nothing else we could do."
"You're not worried my brothers will come for you if they recover their memories?"
"Even if they do — once they know the full truth, most of them would probably ask me to reseal those memories."
"There's probably no Primarch alive who could accept seeing their brother reduced to this. Especially once they understand what the Warp actually is."
Malcador was being unusually reasonable today, which left Perturabo without much grounds to argue. He settled for giving the Emperor one more solid punch, which Malcador followed with his staff.
"The Grey Knights you're building — you're using the Second's gene-seed as the base?"
"Yes. Combined with elements of Magnus's and Lorgar's genetics — to give them both psychic ability and reliable loyalty. It does require selective screening, though. This unit will be rather special."
"Give me a copy. Let me have a look. There may be room to optimise."
Malcador handed over the Grey Knights' production procedures and surgical processes without hesitation. In this domain, at least, he trusted this father-and-son pair — they wouldn't disappoint.
Perturabo worked through the documentation on the Grey Knights rapidly, identified several insufficiencies and structural deficiencies almost immediately, and offered Malcador a few offhand observations that saved him considerable future effort.
"While I'm here — do you still have the technology for the Sangprimus Portum? Copy it for me. I want to study whether I can use it to prepare for certain contingencies based on each brother's situation."
"Also for research purposes. The gene-seeds have considerable scientific value — especially the purest samples. Saves me having to extract genetic material from the brothers directly."
The Emperor was initially reluctant, but a sharp look from Malcador, combined with his own relatively comfortable current circumstances, eventually moved him to have a Custodian retrieve the Sangprimus Portum data from somewhere in the Shadow Cells.
"Here. Don't strip your brothers too bare — a little genetic material is all you should need."
The Emperor couldn't help adding the reminder.
"I know."
"Anything else? State it now, all at once — saves you coming back and forth."
Malcador said.
"Those Men of Stone and Men of Iron look interesting. And that system that resembles the Logis Engine — I'd like those—"
"Absolutely not. Don't even think about it. Even if you killed me, I would not give you those. Do you have any idea how dangerous they are? You've already got plenty in your own bowl — stop eyeing what's in mine. Don't be so greedy."
The Emperor's resistance this time was unusually firm. He had always held a bone-deep aversion to Abominable Intelligence — tolerating anything resembling a Logis Engine on Terra was already at the very edge of what he could accept. Introducing more of it was simply not happening.
Even Malcador didn't agree this time. It wasn't just the Emperor — he, too, had reservations about Perturabo having access to too much Abominable Intelligence. He had seen too many cautionary examples.
"I'll never understand you two. Can't you see how useful Abominable Intelligence is? One Iron Men Rebellion and you've been running backwards ever since?"
"Tell me — what era is this? We're fighting interstellar wars. And yet information is still transmitted on physical materials, and the most efficient method available is still astropathic messages that have to pass through the Warp."
"You've seen how low that efficiency is. If I hadn't pushed the Logis Engine across the entire Imperium, and hadn't started loosening the Mechanicum's self-imposed restrictions, what would the Imperium look like right now?"
"And another thing — the Iron Men Rebellion took ten thousand years to develop! The worlds you've conquered started rebelling in a fraction of that time. Scale aside — they rebelled, didn't they?"
Perturabo's arguments moved neither of them. In their view, some things were better strangled at the source — let the risk exist and it would eventually grow into a catastrophe.
"Completely unreasonable. Who refuses to use superior technology just because they're worried about this and that? This is throwing the baby out with the bathwater."
Perturabo knew he wasn't getting anything more today. He'd have to cut his losses and try again later. There was still time. He could gradually work his way into these two elders' vaults.
It had to be said — as Perpetuals, their reserves were genuinely staggering. Almost anything they produced at random would have forge worlds across the Imperium fighting each other to get their hands on it.
Perturabo could even see several unusual STCs sitting on display shelves, placed there as decorative objects and otherwise completely ignored.
An absolute waste of potential.
He was certain that if everything in this room could be moved to Olympia, the technology he produced would advance by at least an entire generation.
But it was not to be. Today's visit to Terra had reached its limit.
"Remember — if you encounter the Eleventh, and there's no saving him, don't hesitate. Do what needs to be done."
Malcador reminded him.
"I know."
"And if possible, produce some Grey Knights while you're at it. Even as a dedicated anti-psychic strike force, they'd be useful. Having more of them ready as a contingency can only help."
Perturabo agreed. He was planning to establish some Chapters of his own going forward anyway — it made sense to prioritise certain specialised units first.
If Corax could produce the Raven Guard's elite formations, there was no reason the Lord of Iron couldn't develop a steel legion of his own.
Perturabo felt the energy surging back into him.
Research and construction — that was what suited him. All this second-guessing and scheming lately had been driving him toward the edge of madness.