Nareth's eyes deepened. His consciousness gently merged with Meron's mind. He saw a grey forest.
The young Librarian stood before a towering tree.
He raised his hand. Over a dozen branches broke and flew.
His Warp manifestation was a forest.
Around the great tree were many lights of varying heights and brightnesses.
He pulled closer and magnified one of the trees, a mix of blood, grey, and black.
The tree rapidly faded. A illusory image appeared:
In the dim grey forest, youths ran.
Behind them, a wolf-like creature, pitch black with flecks of blood-red, howled.
Its tongue was long, almost the length of its body.
Its iron-grey eyes flickered with a red gleam. Its tongue shot out, wrapping around a stumbling girl.
The tongue coiled. The girl flew towards the creature. Its two unusually long fangs, extending past its lower jaw, opened and closed. Blood sprayed.
He immediately recognized it from the Blasphemous Tablet: the main ingredient for Sequence 5 "Reaper" on the Red Priest Pathway, the Grey Hunter.
He quickly read the memories of other Faceless neophytes. He saw Grey Hunters attacking villages, devouring humans.
'Lecter is truly a harsh world. Not only barren, but also home to dangerous creatures like the Grey Hunters.'
'Still, it's much more hospitable than death worlds like Fenris.'
He also noted that they had been taught table manners, food preparation, and the like, but had not undergone the Faceless's Communion ritual: Hunt, cook a xenos, and consume it according to ritual.
His eyes deepened. He thought.
'The Faceless raised many xenos. They had enough time. Yet they did not advance to full Faceless.'
'It seems deliberate...'
As he thought, he shook the Osiris mind staff again.
Blue light, like moonlight, bathed the Faceless neophytes in black robes.
Their nerves, tense since the Wolves' arrival, gradually relaxed. Their consciousness grew fuzzy.
A flicker of clarity crossed Meron's eyes. But then the "Majesty" of Lord Nareth echoed deep in his mind: "Open your minds."
His taut mind eased.
Light and shadow flickered in the Primarch's eyes. A blurred image appeared.
The blurred image was their memories of growing up in Vostroya, blurred by the intense physical changes of the 'implantation surgeries.'
They would not remember their parents, nor the hive of their birth.
They would only remember the Monarch's hymns and legends.
His consciousness spread, copying and replacing the grey, fragmented orbs.
After modifying the Faceless neophytes' blurred memories, he began modifying their clear memories after becoming Astartes.
Most of these were training memories: raising bolters to shoot targets, honing skills in training cages...
He made minor modifications, replacing training ground emblems, correcting training base locations...
As he made these small changes, he noticed two gleaming golden orbs in Sasebo's mind, brighter than the Custodians' golden armor.
His consciousness spread, touching the memory.
Sasebo stood on the lunar surface, gazing at the dim homeworld.
The Master of Mankind's light blazed.
'His reverence for the Emperor borders on faith.'
'No wonder he could receive revelations from the Emperor's Tarot and find Posul.'
'Now, let me shatter that faith!'
With this thought, light flickered in his eyes. Layers of consciousness enveloped the golden orbs.
CRACK!
With a sharp crack, the golden orbs shattered, scattering into points of golden light.
Sasebo felt a sense of loss. His mental world trembled.
Nareth shook his blue staff. The pale blue light enveloping him deepened, like the deep sea.
A dark black orb formed. Images appeared: Sasebo's eyes blazing.
He swung his gleaming blade, following the black-armored demigod, chopping Orks.
He then touched the other golden orb. In the blazing light, golden wings shone. A black-armored giant walked, his blue-white blade flashing, driving the iron-grey executioner back.
This was a real image in Sasebo's deep mind, not reality.
Though he hadn't seen the fight, his mind had generated a 'reality' blending the real and the illusory.
Nareth's eyes flickered. The golden orb grew brighter and brighter, illuminating his entire mental world.
Three hours later, Nareth withdrew his consciousness and looked down.
The three hundred Shadows of Order neophytes slowly woke. Meron's eyes gleamed. He knelt on one knee.
"Thank You, Father, for Your instruction. I have mastered the first level of the Thelema mindstate."
The last memory he had implanted was of personally teaching them. It matched their current state.
As he began modifying the second batch of Faceless neophytes in the Wolves' den, the warm hearth fire lit the iron-grey stone room as usual.
But Jorin, Wolf Lord of the 13th Great Company, felt a chill.
Not only from the cold radiating from the Wolf King's damaged armor and talismans, but also from the cold etched in his mind.
His mind was clouded. The images of Sanchez's gleaming blade and his Wolf King crashing into the cliff alternated, tormenting him. His weathered face grew more sorrowful.
His Wolf Priest, Ulbander, rose from the grey stone bed.
Freki and Geri, coiled uneasily by the bed, let out a low growl, ready to spring.
"The Wolf King is fine," Ulbander explained to the Wolf King's wolf brothers. The two giant wolves stepped back.
He walked silently to Jorin. "Like Dulan, the Wolf King is only wounded and unconscious."
"He is a Primarch. The wound will heal quickly."
The concern in Jorin's bloodshot, murky eyes faded.
Yes. Like Dulan, the Wolf King had lost again, to the same man.
He didn't know how the proud Wolf King would face it when he woke.
After a few seconds of silence, he spoke. "Come with me."
The two walked out of the iron-grey stone room. Jorin said to the anxious Wolf Lords.
"The Wolf King is fine. He just needs rest."
A glimmer of light lit Ogvai's sunken eyes.
Amlodi breathed a sigh of relief. His clenched hand relaxed.
After the others dispersed, Jorin returned to the room. He took a bottle of hot mead from beside the hearth.
He sat on the floor, looking at the Wolf King on the stone bed, his gaze sweeping over the frost armor.
"Old friend." Jorin smiled bitterly, using the address he only used when they were alone.
Russ's whisper in his ear on Dulin flashed through his mind.
"You, only you, I will always hold in the highest regard."
"I remember the Terrans said you would never pass the tests. So when I saw you complete the trials, my heart pounded."
"Then I knew, no matter how the fate may change, I could always trust my Shield-Servant without reserve."
Jorin drank deeply. As his stomach burned, Russ's voice echoed.
"Jorin, you are unique, irreplaceable. No one on Terra or Fenris can compare."
"Even at the end, when everyone disappoints me, you will never fail me. I have always believed this."
"Because in the beginning, we stood in the same hall, pledging fealty to King Tengir. Before Fenris was turned upside down, we already fought and killed together."
Mead spilled from the corner of his mouth. "I have ultimately failed your trust."
"Perhaps I am too old."
He said wearily, his hand loosening its grip on the bronze flagon.
On the stone bed, Russ's eyelid twitched.
The golden fist rapidly faded. He sat up abruptly, having crashed into the cliff.
He looked around warily. He didn't see Nareth.
After a moment, he recognized that this was not the dark Lecter, not the Florence Gorge, but...
"Krakagad!"
Krakagad was the Wolfbrother's burial ground.
On the howling Fenris, the cliff path descending from the Fang's Dawn Gate.
He looked up, puzzled. He saw the star, the Wolf's Eye, moving in this direction.
During the Season of Fire, the sun was near. The solar corona's golden serpents churned.
Fire reappeared on the mountain peak. Malignant white light filled a quarter of the horizon. Glaciers shuddered in catastrophic melting.
He spun. The Wolf Moon, Valdrmani, was hidden below the opposite horizon, pale in the sun's glare.
.......
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
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