Lord of the Night

The man had known little, ultimately. Glimmers of memories, snatches of detail that fired recognition in his eyes but could draw nothing new from the fragments of his third of the Slake computer. It was as he said: alone, he was pifitful. A moronic child, a nothing, a nobody.

He could recall meetings. He could glimpse, in agonised flashes, the package that Sahaal sought so desperately.

'Was it open?' Sahaal had raged. 'Was it opened?'

But that detail was beyond him, as were any others, and the Night Lord had been quick to succumb to the fury that was building inside him with every day, the hungry voices whispering for blood in his mind.

Sahaal took the man's head and left the body to the waters of the swamp, where luminous tendrils dragged it down to the depths.

The scouts were redeployed to find the remaining pieces of the collective. The youngster who had captured the man went unthanked, chastised for his incomplete prize.

It was all Sahaal could do not to tear him to shreds.

Thus it was, with his blood boiling in his veins, his heart hammering in his ears, and the name ''Pahvulti'' spinning in a slick of poison and piss through his mind, that two fawning Shadowkin crept forth to tell him that finally the captives he had taken from the starport were awake.

The savage grin on his face left them ashen with terror.

In a shack at the camp's edge — as sturdy and soundproofed a structure as the meagre building materials had allowed — he took delivery of the first hostage. The tribesmen dumped the moaning creature to the floor, faces twisted with disgust. He dismissed them and they left with relief, pausing only to spit at the blind worm on the floor.

Sahaal wondered vaguely how they might react if they knew the truth: that without such astropathic wretches as this their mighty Imperium was a doomed giant, without eyes or ears or mouth.

He stepped towards the figure — shivering and naked in the rustmud — and crooned with an eagerness that he could no longer contain. His rage would not be restrained.

'W-who's there?' the man quailed, withered features crumpling further. His wrists and ankles were bound with sharp cable and his eyes... his eyes had been taken from him long, long ago. The tortured flesh at their edges was puffy with unhealed scars and infection.

'You cannot see me?' Sahaal teased, already knowing the answer.

'I... N-no! My visem dens... sweet Emperor... It's gone!'

Ah yes, Sahaal reflected. The second sight. Such men as this did not need eyes to see.

Usually.

'What have you done to me?' the voice grew loud, indignation at the theft of its greatest sense puncturing its fear. Sahaal allowed himself an indulgent smile.

'It is lead,' he said, bending to run fingers across the thick strip of bent metal, powder-white, coiled across his furrowed forehead like a circlet. Sahaal flicked it playfully. 'It is anathema to your... gifts, yes? You may no more penetrate it than a hawk may escape its hood.'

'Who are you?' The astopath's voice became a whisper, an awestruck quail that wrestled between curiosity and horror. 'How do you know so much about the gift? I... I am not afraid of you!'

Sahaal's smile broadened.

'I know the astropath's weakness, little man,' he said, 'because at one time an army of your brothers was at my disposal, through choice or not. And as for your fear...' He wet his lips, trembling, 'I think we both know you are lying.'

'The Emperor's faith is strong in my soul! I am without sin! Whatever your aims I shall n—'

'Do you know of Chaos?'

The man's mouth opened and closed, all his bluster stolen from him, a paroxysm of revulsion wracking him. 'I... You dare speak its name? Emperor preserve m—'

'You shall know of Chaos. You shall bathe in its fires, my friend. You shall know its voice.'

'Blasphemy! B-blasphemy!' The psyker tried to spit, to summon a gobbet of rebellious spittle on his flexing tongue, but Sahaal was faster. A single talon snickered from its secret sheath, blurred in the air, and was gone. The man spat out his own tongue on the crest of a shriek.