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Watchers of the Throne: The Regent’s Shadow – Extract

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Jek

He was gone. He had disappeared back into the void almost as soon as he’d arrived, and yet everything was still, one way or another, all about him.

Some souls leave an indelible trace. I believe he was incapable of moving through the universe without profoundly changing it. In a sense, he was not even part of it – he had a body, he could be wounded, he breathed air and drank water, and yet you could not look into those eyes for long without seeing the overwhelming strangeness there, the quality of another place, bound up for a time in flesh and blood but surely beyond it.

I had seen him only a handful of times, mostly from a distance. The first occasion was when I travelled with my then master, Tieron, to Luna, and witnessed the aftermath of the battle he and his warriors fought under hard starlight. I was not brave enough to accompany my master into Guilliman’s presence, and so only observed that first meeting from afar. After that, we were separated, and Tieron and I did not speak again until we were both back on Terra. And after that, the daemons came, and it is difficult to recall anything without flinching.

I was sick for a long time, then. We all were, I think. The air was polluted with stronger poisons than we had ever known, and we were used to poisons on Terra. The stone beneath our feet felt fragile. When you put a finger out to touch something – a cup, a scroll – electricity would snap across the gap, a flicker of bloody energy that had no place on this or any other world.

Amid it all, though, he was there. His energy was infinite. He fought the creatures that dared charge our walls, casting down the greatest of them. Even as the spires still burned, he spearheaded the assault that freed the Vorlese Gate and reforged the Throneworld’s access to the Imperium. Warriors flocked to his side, given renewed purpose by the smallest of his actions, or even the rumours of them. When he returned to the Palace, the pace of his reordering was frenetic. We had been used to torpor for so long, and now we had one among us who would tolerate no hesitation. None of us could look him in the eye and say no, save perhaps Valoris himself. Reforms were put in place that I had not expected to see enacted in my children’s lifetimes, let alone mine.

I never worked harder. Tieron was gone by then, exhausted by his long service and the rigours of the cataclysm, leaving me to take his place. We were a study in contrasts, I suppose. He was old, indulgent, a product of insecurity. I was a relatively young woman, and in other times might have expected to serve for several decades more before taking the chain of office. I had always had my eye on the position, and knew that I deserved it, but now the prize had been handed over into hands that felt, in truth, not quite ready.

I had been a part of the Palace machine for many years, of course, but even so it was hard to grapple with everything that had to be done. The orders came in flurries, brought to my chamber by panicked attendants, and I had to somehow make sense of them and see them dealt with.

I remarked on the difficulties to Mordecai, my adjutant. We were in my personal chambers, speaking in private conference. My inner room was a small space, sparsely furnished. I had only just got rid of Tieron’s clutter, replacing it with the things I valued more greatly than vases and paintings – cogitator terminals, advanced sensor arrays, secure comm-links to the various agents we had in the field. The result was a strange mix of the ornate and the functional – it was in a state of improvised change, as were all things at that time.

Mordecai did not offer an opinion. He was by then nearly two hundred years old, and steeped in the ancient rituals of the only place he had ever known. I also think he was in a state of shock, and had taken to shuffling through the gilt corridors with his eyes half-closed, shutting out the evidence that it was all ending. So many of my servants were like that, still rocked by all they had seen and experienced. Terra is a world built on tradition, much of it thousands of years old. We had come to depend on that, to make it a kind of religion to go alongside the official one, and having that foundation shaken had hurt us, I think, more than any of the physical damage that had been done.

But just then, some weeks after the victory at Vorlese, while those we had recovered from the void were still confined to their medical stations, the summons came. I remember looking at the parchment docket in my hand, seeing the seal of office at the top of it, and the thin line of gold around the edge. A holo-ident glimmered faintly across the left-hand margin, which gave surety of its origin, though that felt superfluous, for none would have dared to forge a document with his name on it.

I was daunted, I will admit it. I had grown up with the powerful, and did not scare easily, but he was different.

I went straightaway. I left Mordecai hunched in front of all the stacked pict-feeds, and hurried to my personal living quarters. Much against habit, I checked my appearance carefully. Would I look ludicrous to him, being so new in position, largely untried, a possible weak link in the new chain of command he was building? It was possible that he had summoned me only in order to dismiss me, as he had done with so many of the high-ranking Palace officials already. To be cast out of office that quickly would, I concede, have dented my pride, and I found myself rehearsing arguments as I went, hoping I would be sufficiently self-assured in his presence to deliver them.

He had taken up residence in one of the older sectors of the Senatorum. These quarters were sufficiently close that I was able to walk to meet him, passing through a tangle of internal corridors, none of which had external windows. As I went, I passed that same mix of ancient and modern – priceless gold statues leaning next to coils of Mechanicus cabling, fine carpets rolled up to reveal glittering machine-pits beneath. Adepts and magi bustled around, prodding and fixing, restoring and meddling. We were all having to be seen to be busy, to be committed to the great restoration, knowing that the eye of the Regent was on all things, and that even the smallest detail might be brought to his attention.

Such were the dimensions of the Inner Palace buildings that, despite making use of several self-propelled walkways and privileged cut-throughs, it took me some time to reach his location. The chambers he had co-opted must have been more or less as they were when he had first dwelt here, aeons ago. The lack of change may have been reassuring to him. He had brought his Space Marines to guard him, which again was something that would not have happened here before.

As I finally reached the great vaulted antechamber, replete with mosaic depictions of the Nine Primarchs fighting the old wars of myth, I found it uncomfortable to see them standing before the marble doors, perfectly still, perfectly silent, their faces hidden behind gold-winged masks. They had, I knew, travelled across the length of the entire galaxy to be here. Their armour, fine as it was, still bore the chips and scores of combat. I wondered what they thought of this place, now they were here, but of course did not ask them. As far as I was concerned, they were like golems, capable of being summoned to life through blood or spells, but in the meantime only made of inert matter. Nothing they did as I passed them by challenged that mental image.

He did not only surround himself with soldiers. The chambers beyond were thronged with civilian servants, most in the blue-lined robes of Ultramar, some in Terran regalia. A number of those were either under my command or were otherwise known to me, but they did not attempt to catch my eye as I walked through their midst. Above them all, crystal chandeliers glistered. Below their slippered feet, the rugs were finely woven and of intricate design. The impassive faces of heroes gazed out across the throngs from oil paintings and frescoes. The murmur of conversation was just as it had always been in such places – low, urgent, conspiratorial.

I caught the eye of his duty officer, who immediately worked her way to my side. She was of Ultramar, as were so many of those he trusted to be close to him.

‘Chancellor,’ she said, bowing. ‘Thank you for coming so quickly. He awaits within.’

I was led through the crowds and shown into his private chamber. Great gold-crusted doors closed behind me, sealing off all the chatter. I found myself in a high-ceilinged room. Cold, grey light shone through tall external windows. The place smelled vaguely, I thought, of boot polish. The objects within were, I assumed, those that had been there for centuries – antique desks and chairs and ornamental pillars. Incongruously, a large collection of chronometers had been placed in a cabinet behind armourglass. An obsidian figurine of Sanguinius stood in the corner.

The duty officer had withdrawn, meaning that I was alone in there. Aside from him, of course.

He looked up as I entered, and rose from the heavy desk he had been working at. His size was not the most striking thing about him, although of course that was hard to ignore. He fixed me with that solid gaze of his, the one I had been warned about. When he looked at you, nothing tangible in his expression gave away that he was judging you – there was no overt criticism there – but still, somehow, you felt guilty, as if your sins had been uncovered all at once and you were left scrambling to make excuses for them. I am sure, absolutely sure, that he did not intend that, for when he spoke his voice was rather quiet, even solicitous, but there was no getting away from what he was, and what he had seen and done. Against that record, it was impossible, I suppose, to feel anything other than inadequate.

‘Cancellarius,’ he said, using the more formal version of my title.

‘My lord Guilliman,’ I replied, bowing. ‘You wished to see me?’

He smiled – a brief, snatched gesture. His face was handsome in a patrician kind of way, though held rigid and scarred in the military manner. I knew how old he was, at least in absolute terms, though he wore the years lightly. He looked almost familiar, which made me think that the Ministorum image-makers must have used accurate models for their statues, the ones that had been distributed across all human worlds over the millennia, carved to standard dimensions and used to encourage devotion from the masses.

‘I wished to see you weeks ago,’ he said, gesturing towards two low chairs that had been placed closer to the windows. ‘It is the courtesies that slip, when time is short. I am sorry for that.’

I sat opposite him. Ahead of us was the view of the world outside – the smouldering, blackened spires, stretching away under a grey sky.

‘There is nothing to apologise for, my lord,’ I said.

In the strict run of things, he had no authority over me. He had no official rank at all within the Adeptus Terra. He was something we had no category for, and at that point he had not assumed the formal title of Imperial Regent, nor had he revived the old position of Lord Commander that he had occupied all those thousands of years ago. According to the Lex, I was under no obligation to speak to him at all.

But all of us knew how things stood. If he had asked us to fall on our swords, we would have done it.

‘You are the doorkeeper,’ he said. ‘The High Council operates only because you facilitate it. For what it’s worth, you should know your predecessor spoke highly of you.’

Ah, Tieron. For all his human weaknesses, his little vices and indulgences, he was not a bad man.

‘I will be making changes,’ Guilliman went on. He placed his hands together in front of him, angling the fingers. ‘There will be no bloodshed, no humiliation, but the Council will answer to me from now on, and I cannot trust all its current members to do that.’

I nodded. We had known that something of this nature would have to take place. Lord Franck, the Master of the Astronomican, had died during the first wave of anarchy to overtake the Throneworld, so he at least was due to be replaced. In the normal run of things, the succession would have taken place swiftly, but these were not ordinary times. The Forbidden Fortress, Franck’s domain, was still under formal reconstruction following its near-destruction when the Rift had reached us, and it was not yet clear who would occupy it, nor what they would discover when they did.

‘Do you have particular changes in mind?’ I asked.

Of course he did. Guilliman reached down for a scroll on the table between us, and handed it to me. I opened it, and read five names, including Franck’s, together with replacements. None were surprises. If I had been asked to draw up the list, I would have made many of the same judgements.

‘Is there anything there you would counsel against?’ he asked.

It was nice of him to ask.

‘They are excellent choices, my lord,’ I said.

‘I will speak to those affected in person,’ he said. ‘But I wished to consult you first.’

‘I appreciate that, my lord.’

‘There is pressure from some quarters to change everything,’ Guilliman said. ‘To sweep it all away. I have no intention of doing so. We are in a precarious strategic position, and I cannot undermine that which remains capable of functioning.’

I rolled the parchment up again. ‘May I ask what timetable you envisage?’

‘Within the week. And after that, reform of the subsidiary bodies.’ He smiled again. ‘Do not fear, cancellarius. Your position is safe. I place considerable faith in you – I hope that will be justified.’

‘As He wills it,’ I said. ‘But… a week. It will be difficult to–’

‘It cannot be delayed. Nothing can be delayed.’ He leaned forward, and in that gesture I was reminded of his physical bulk, his sheer otherworldliness, the truth that he was only human at all in the loosest sense, and the trappings of domesticity – chairs, armour, parchment – were just props around him to enable us to comprehend it all. ‘I will not be on Terra long. I cannot be. Most of my time here has already been spent preparing the new crusade, the one that must depart before the year’s end. These things – these appointments and reforms – they are the least of my worries, and when I am gone, you must maintain them.’

So that was the real purpose of this meeting. He was warning me of the coming rupture, knowing that it would be severe. We had only just come to terms with the idea that we might survive these times of trial, and that fragile hope was largely bound up in his presence among us. Take that away, and it would be harder not to remember how weak we really were.

I was not capable of hiding those thoughts from him. He must surely have been expecting them.

‘Terra is still in profound turmoil, my lord,’ I said. ‘Control does not extend far beyond these walls. If you depart before–’

He closed his eyes, and I stopped talking. For a moment, I perceived an enormous weariness in him, a mortal response to the infinite demands and hopes heaped upon his armoured shoulders. I look back now, and guess that every meeting he ever had ended the same way, with someone pleading for more help, more guidance, more protection.

‘The Imperium burns,’ he said, quietly but firmly. ‘Every hour I spend here, behind my father’s walls, is another hour when worlds are lost. My decision is made. It is correct. I ask only that you preserve what has been done here once I am gone.’

I bowed, my cheeks flushing a little. ‘It shall be as you command, my lord,’ I said.

And, in what followed, I did what I could to make good on that promise. I understood the reasons. I respected the integrity of the decision.

But I do not know if he was right. A primarch is a godlike creature, a master of forces far beyond any we can hope to understand, but even the Church never taught that they were infallible. Those of us privileged enough to know a little history understood that they could make mistakes, and the mistakes of gods are greater than the mistakes of mortals.

Was he right to leave so soon? I do not know, even now. Perhaps he could not have done otherwise. Perhaps things might have been better if he had stayed.

That is for the historians to ponder, should any live for long enough to look back on these ages. All I could say with certainty is that we were to be alone again, while the forces that had come close to destroying us had not gone away. In that respect, nothing had changed. The wider Imperium would have Guilliman to protect it, driving an arc of fire across the void at the head of his crusade’s armies. We on Terra only had ourselves, just as it had been since the days of legend. We had to trust, and pray, that it would be enough.

It is important to remember, when considering all that was done then, how little we knew.

It had never been easy for us, at the very heart of the Imperium, to understand what was taking place with any accuracy in its furthest reaches. No greater illustration of this exists than Cadia. That world had been the linchpin of our defences for millennia. Armies had been dispatched there from all corners of mankind’s domains at regular intervals, and entire astropathic choirs were devoted to monitoring its condition. And yet, when the Despoiler finally rose up against it, we were almost entirely ignorant of what took place until the fighting was over. It is true that Kerapliades, the Master of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, had given warnings long before the catastrophe occurred. It was also true that many of us had feared the worst for years ahead of the event, and had been making contingency plans for disaster. But even after that world had been lost, we could not be certain of the true position of the subsector for considerable time. Tieron estimated that months at least had passed before the effects of the Cicatrix Maledictum – the final proof of our defeat there – reached the Sol System, wreaking its havoc across our ancient ramparts.

I often think about that. We sent reinforcements there, waving the ships out of void-dock with fanfares and music, when the world itself was already gone.

By the time of Guilliman’s arrival, our ignorance was greater than ever. Some of this was due to the temporary outage of the Astronomican, which had left us unable to send ships for any distance in even partial safety. More was due to the losses we had suffered within our ranks of astropaths when the Rift hit. The toll was high across all Imperial worlds, even those that clung on while the effects of the rupture washed over them, and we were no exception. By the time the worst was over, and the survivors emerged from their bunkers and semi-ruined towers to survey the wreckage, we had lost our principal means of discovering the fate of other worlds. Those few star-seers who had somehow insulated themselves against madness were heavily leaned on after that, so much so that many died from overwork. All circles in those days were vicious – the more we tried to recover ground, the more we damaged ourselves.

Bit by bit, though, information reached us. Battered warships staggered into Luna’s void-docks, each carrying tales of destruction and mayhem. Acolytes were rushed through final training at the Obsidian Keep and pressed into service. Once the Vorlese Gate had been secured, squadrons of Mechanicus augur-ships were shot through the warp-lanes, given no mission but to run hard and send back as much data as possible before being overtaken by the enemy.

And, of course, by then we had the Lord Protector himself. He had arrived on Terra at the head of a powerful army, one that had fought its way through almost unimaginable terrors all the way from distant Ultramar. They had witnessed for themselves the collapse of the Imperium’s foundations even as they had hurtled through them to reach its core. There were rumours, never confirmed, that Guilliman had even obtained access to counsel from xenos during this time, though if that were true then the abominations had disappeared long before he took up his official stewardship of the Imperium. For myself, I do not believe the whispers. He would have killed them rather than listen to their lies.

Given our incomplete understanding of what lay beyond our immediate surroundings, it was inevitable that there should be disagreement over what, if anything, we could do in response to the Rift opening. There were those who argued that we needed to retrench, build our strength here and guard the holy sites at the heart of our ancient empire. As Terra was still in a state of semi-revolt, riven by uprisings that could not be quelled during the Days of Blindness and their aftermath, those voices found much support. After all, Guilliman had brought with him unique and capable forces, including warriors from many Space Marine Chapters, all of whom could have been used to repopulate the walls here and bring us back into stability.

It did not take much thought, though, to see that such a policy would only postpone our demise, not prevent it. Over the millennia, Terra had grown dependent on its vast web of supplicant worlds. Thousands of them were required in order to keep our hungry mouths fed. Some losses might be sustainable among the masses if the food supplies failed for a limited time, but other functions were absolutely essential. The League of Black Ships had to maintain its perilous void-circuits, lest we be starved of fuel for the newly restored Astronomican and replacement psykers for our inter-system communication. Tithes from civilised worlds had to be collected in order to maintain the operation of government and the galactic coordination of Astra Militarum movements. The volume of materiel that had to move in and out of the Sol System daily just to maintain a state of equilibrium was absolutely staggering. Terra had become bloated on the incoming traffic from its straggling dominions, and would not survive withdrawal from their constant provision. As a result, we could not huddle behind our defences and lick our wounds. We had to strike back, and swiftly, to regain control of that which was already sliding out of our grasp forever.

Guilliman had appreciated this from the start, of course. And, though I only came to realise it much later, his motivation in fighting so hard to reach the Sol System was only partially concerned with us on Terra. Of equal importance to him was Mars, where his greatest project had been ready and waiting for him, ripe to deliver him a new army of such power and scope that any previous Imperial Warmaster would have given their eyes for it.

The Primaris programme had been kept secret from all. For me, that, rather than their undoubted battlefield prowess, was the most remarkable thing about the entire endeavour. Tieron had been fond of telling me that there were no secrets in the Imperium, only failures of recollection, but here was something that, if we chose to believe what we were told, had been gestating quietly for millennia, right under the noses of the High Lords and captains-general and archmagi. Guilliman was the author of the Primaris, and so he had come here, it turned out, not to rescue us, but to activate them.

I wondered sometimes whether, if the Primaris programme had been instigated on a forge world of Ultramar rather than Mars, he would have made the difficult journey here at all. I like to think he would have done, and that the place of his creation meant something to him even after the passage of so much time. I hope he would have come. Of course, we’ll never know for sure.

In any case, when it finally became clear, following our meeting in the Senatorum, what Guilliman was intending, I tried hard to reach Oud Oudia Raskian, the Fabricator-General of the Adeptus Mechanicus. I thought it important that the High Lords convene swiftly to debate this course of action and consider how the Throneworld would survive once stripped of so many of its defences. I failed to make contact, despite attempting it many times. I will admit it – I also wanted to know whether Raskian had been aware of the Primaris, and if so whether he approved of them being placed under Guilliman’s sole command so quickly – but my inability to find him put paid to such ambitions. Mars being Mars, I never found out where he was, or why he remained silent. They are a strange people, made stranger by their obsessive religion, and there was a limit to what a Terran, even one as senior as I, would ever be able to uncover.

But the eleven remaining High Lords were in place, some established in their roles, others new Guilliman appointees. I was the chancellor, the one charged with running their errands, guiding them away from mistakes and looking to their corporate welfare. The time of great upheaval was over, so we hoped, and so my duty was clear. A High Council with so many new members, at a time of such great peril, was always going to be difficult to manage, despite the fact it would need to be given direction swiftly, before anything else could degrade or devolve.

There was no choice, then, but to issue a silent prayer to the One on the Throne, collect my thoughts, form a strategy, and get to work.

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A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2020.
This eBook edition published in 2020 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

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