"Father of Decay, Fuck You!"
Typhon stood before an endless sea of wheat. Pale gray dawn light outlined his figure as mist rolled across the land.
He took a deep breath and shouted into the desolate plain, "Father of Decay, Fuck You!"
His voice echoed sharp and clear through the still morning air.
From the moment the fog rose to the time sunlight burned it away, his shouting never ceased.
He used to count for the first seven weeks, but later he just estimated the time.
Now he could no longer remember how many times he had screamed, but it must have been at least a thousand.
His chest heaved, his throat dry and raw, but the knot that had long pressed on his heart slowly dissolved in the morning wind. The world suddenly felt brighter.
His teacher called this "simple verbal therapy, the purest form of enjoyment."
Typhon stepped along the dew-wet ridge between fields. Heller Pass was a typical Barbarus-style rural village, low mud-brick houses surrounding a weathered communal granary, golden waves of wheat swaying gently in the morning breeze.
The village nestled in the arms of the valley, sheltered partially from Barbarus's poisonous fog.
As dawn broke, a wooden door creaked open on the edge of the village.
A little girl bounded out with a wooden basin in her hands. Spotting the figure on the ridge, she waved her damp hand high and shouted, "Good morning, Brother Typhon!"
"Good morning, Debbie."
Typhon's lips curved into a faint smile. Though some villagers still disliked their presence, Debbie's bright smile gave him a fleeting sense of belonging, the feeling that someone actually welcomed him, that someone needed him.
He never wanted much, just a greeting, a nod, or even a gaze that didn't turn away in fear.
Those small gestures of recognition were like faint sparks in the wilderness, not enough to banish the darkness, but enough to keep him walking forward.
Soon, he saw the house he and Mortarion had built with their own hands, chopping timber from the mountain and raising the structure piece by piece.
He still remembered how the villagers had watched them in uneasy silence when they first arrived.
There were only about two hundred people in Heller Pass. The strongest had been captured during a raid by the Overlord's puppets. It was Typhon who saved them from the slave wagons and it was Mortarion and Caelan who led them safely home.
The villagers were torn, happy their kin had returned, yet terrified of the Overlord's wrath.
Some even suggested killing the escapees and sending their bodies back up the mountain to appease the tyrant.
In the end, gratitude and fear reached a stalemate. The villagers let the outsiders stay and even gave them the largest house.
Typhon, who had wandered from village to village all his life, was used to being treated like a freak. Even a filthy stable would have been a blessing, let alone the best house in town.
But Mortarion wasn't one for comfort, nor would he steal from peasants. So, under the villagers' wary stares, the two quietly built their own home.
In the courtyard, Mortarion sat silently feeding the fire beneath a crude stove. A grayish stew simmered in the pot, tasteless but not too poisonous.
"Come sit," Caelan said, patting the wooden bench beside him.
Typhon obeyed, sitting neatly with his hands on his knees. His once-jealous, confused eyes now brimmed only with reverence.
"We continue our lesson on the Warp," said Caelan. "You already understand how psychic power arises. Today, we'll discuss psykers and the psyker species."
As usual, Caelan held a small private class for the two before the day began.
"Last time," he said, "I told you that humanity stands on the brink of ascending into a psyker species. So, what is a psyker species?"
Mortarion's voice rumbled like distant thunder. "An entire race of psykers."
He still hated the warp, but Caelan had told him that psychic evolution was irreversible.
One day, all humans would awaken as psykers. Even the Primarchs' birth was tied to the warp.
Mortarion still believed psykers endangered mankind, but his view had softened. No longer "kill every warp-spawned wretch," he now thought, "those too weak to resist corruption must be tightly controlled."
To destroy psykers completely would mean destroying humanity itself, and the Primarchs too.
That was too extreme… and unfair.
His father was innocent. His father was never born a psyker, the Emperor made him this way!
Caelan asked, "Yes, an all-psyker species, but that's just the surface. Barbarus is a poisonous world; yet poison is only its appearance. What is its essence?"
Typhon's voice was low and bitter. "A god, the cruel mockery of a god upon mortals. That's what turned Barbarus into a toxic hell."
Mortarion turned toward him. "So the essence of a psyker species… is also a god?"
Caelan nodded faintly. "That's my personal view. It's limited, not necessarily right, but worth considering as a theory."
"In my opinion, only two true psyker species exist in the galaxy: the Aeldari and the Orks. They share two traits. First, every member of their kind wields psychic energy, the Aeldari through the warp, the Orks through their unique Waaagh! field."
"Second, both have gods, the Aeldari have their pantheon, and the Orks have Gork and Mork."
"I'm not saying a race needs gods," Caelan continued, "but if gods are necessary for a psyker species to exist… then why?"
Mortarion paused. "Emotion."
Caelan smiled, fatherly and approving. "Exactly, emotion."
Mortarion tried to stay stoic but glanced sidelong at Typhon, eyes gleaming with smug pride.
'See? That's my father. Mine, not yours.'
Typhon ignored the look, his fingers drumming softly on his knee. "All emotional energy from sentient beings flows into the warp, feeding the Chaos Gods. If a psyker species has its own gods, then perhaps their emotions feed those gods instead of the Four?"
Caelan's eyes brightened. "Precisely."
"In the galaxy, every sapient species risks corruption by the Four, except the Orks. They're born to believe in Gork and Mork. Their logic, their wars, their very Waaagh! all serve those gods."
"Even rare exceptions never form societies like humanity's."
"As for the Aeldari…" Caelan paused. "For sixty million years, their empire ruled the galaxy, unchallenged. Even then, they stayed safely distant from the Chaos Gods, until they betrayed their own."
"Their myths differ wildly, but one thing is certain: once, the Aeldari freely walked the realms of their gods, until Asuryan, the Phoenix King, sealed the path between mortals and divinity."
"The so-called divine realms, I suspect, are much like the domains of the Chaos Gods, parts of the warp itself. The Four are mighty, but not its only rulers. Beyond their kingdoms lies a vast unclaimed expanse, the formless wastelands of the Immaterium."
"Within those wilds dwell others: Gork and Mork, the Aeldari gods, Vashtorr, and many nameless powers."
"Gork and Mork still guard their Orks, staying closely bound to them."
"The Waaagh! is a kind of reforged psychic energy. If psychic power is gunpowder, mortals are artisans who must craft it into bullets, grenades, or rockets. Gork and Mork let their Orks skip all that, they're born firing rockets."
Mortarion asked, "Did the Aeldari once have the same power?"
"Most likely," Caelan said. "When they could still commune with their gods, they probably wielded a force akin to Waaagh! energy. But when Asuryan severed the link, they lost that blessing."
"Still, their emotions nourished their gods, not the Big Four. But as they drifted away from faith, indulgence and decadence consumed their civilization."
"They no longer worshipped their gods, they thought themselves divine. And from that arrogance, excess, and hedonism followed, then a new god was born."
"The youngest god, She Who Thirsts. Slaanesh."
Typhon frowned. "And their gods just watched them fall?"
"The seal was two-way," Caelan said. "The Aeldari couldn't reach their gods, and the gods couldn't reach them. They still felt the emotions of their people but could no longer intervene. Perhaps they tried to warn them, but by then, few Aeldari still believed."
Mortarion asked, "Then Asuryan himself? Couldn't he undo what he'd done?"
Caelan sighed. "He could have. But unfortunately, Asuryan preferred sleeping soundly. In all of Aeldari history, no one embodied useless divinity better than he did."
"When the Aeldari gods sensed doom, they couldn't even flee. They could only watch their people slide into the abyss, until Slaanesh was born and devoured them all."
"Only Cegorach escaped into the Webway, Isha was imprisoned by Nurgle, Khaine shattered, the rest were annihilated."
Mortarion whispered, "And Asuryan?"
"Eaten."
The fall of the Aeldari was a tragedy of mutual apathy: gods indifferent to mortals, mortals indifferent to gods.
Only Slaanesh laughed, thankful for the feast delivered to her door.
Caelan continued, "Even after their empire fell, the Aeldari remained a psyker species. Their emotions now flow only to Slaanesh. When they die, their souls are devoured, for She Who Thirsts is both their god and one of the Chaos Four."
"She is the only god they truly fear, yet even in ruin they scorn the other three."
Caelan's theory, wild as it sounded, cracked Mortarion's rigid beliefs like a blade through fog.
He saw it now, perhaps humanity truly could never escape the warp.
Even if humans learned to travel safely through the Webway, they could never sever the warp's tie to their souls.
To cut that link would be suicide. But to keep it meant every thought, every scream, would feed the endless maelstrom.
The Four feasted freely, because no one else contested them.
But if humanity had its own god, their emotions might flow there instead. When they died, their souls could return to their own divinity.
That was the only solution.
"In this cruel, dark universe," Caelan said, "a civilization has only two paths.
"Become blind, seal itself from the warp, stagnate, and die in silence.
"Or ascend, embrace the warp and break free from the Four's chains, forging a destiny of its own."
There was a third path, mechanical ascension, like the Necrons.
But that too was a lie. When they their shed flesh, their souls became the feast of the C'tan.
The true Necrontyr were long dead; the Necrons were but metal wraiths.
Even they could not fully escape the warp. Their so-called purity was just blindness, turning the galaxy into a silent tomb to shut out the sea of souls.
Psychic ascension was not choice, it was necessity.
Mortarion rasped, voice raw, "If humanity must have a god… who will it be? The Emperor?"
Caelan sighed softly. "You already know the answer."
The Emperor was not a god, nor did he wish to become one.
He knew that if he ever did, it would only end one way, as the Dark King.
Just as Slaanesh's birth destroyed the Aeldari, the Dark King's birth would doom mankind.
The Emperor chose to burn on the Golden Throne, to suffer endlessly rather than let divinity crown him.
He would never be a god.
"I will," Mortarion whispered.
The Primarchs, they were the gods the Emperor meant to shape for mankind.
He had braved the warp, stolen its essence from beneath the Four's gaze, perhaps to forge gods for humanity.
He alone had seen the truth.
Caelan said, "That's only my guess. The Emperor never told me his plan, and I never asked. When you return to the Imperium, you can ask him yourself."
"Father," Mortarion bowed his head in the shadows, "will I become a god?"
Any mortal would have been proud to ask that. Mortarion only felt cold terror.
"Yes." Caelan rose and placed both hands heavily on his shoulders. "You will become the guardian god of mankind."
"I, you, the Emperor, Malcador, your brothers, and all who dedicate their lives to humanity's survival, we are the guardians of mankind!"
Mortarion looked up, his eyes reflecting his father's face, a small spark of hope flickering within.
Yes, he still had his father.
"What is a god?" Caelan asked, then answered himself. "Humanity's definition is vague, it means anything beyond their understanding."
"A god is a religious idea. Even when the Aeldari abandoned faith, their emotions still flowed to their gods."
"Your power is both gift and burden. It can make you extraordinary, but you don't have to rule from the heavens. What matters is how you use it, whether you shoulder the responsibility that comes with it."
"It's not about who you are, it's about who you choose to become."
"Even if you truly gain divinity, as long as you can keep your humanity… what is there to fear?"
Mortarion's eyes shone with quiet resolve. "I understand, Father."
If his father said he was to be mankind's guardian, then that's what he would become.
Typhon watched him, filled with an emotion he couldn't name, not jealousy of his strength or destiny, but of something simpler: the way Caelan treated him like a true son.
Caelan had never looked at him that way.
"Mortarion," Typhon murmured, "your stew's burning."
Mortarion glanced down. Smoke curled from the pot; the air filled with a bitter smell.
Caelan clapped his hands lightly. "No matter, skip breakfast. Class is about to begin. Clean this up first."