Here she comes now; my ruin, my ruination. She comes in the midst of night. She comes for me in dark, empty hours where voices still and draw quiet, and it seems as if the whole world is dead and gone.
Her cold hand reaches out to caress my cheek, but it is thin, insubstantial. A dream…? The thought brings me no relief.
For my teachers in the Psykana have always taught us:
The dreams of mankind are the darkest things in all Creation.
It was here in the Guard that I first met her. It’s a shit life in the Guard. Every second, some poor, hapless guardsman is out there bleeding his last, into the mud and trenches of nameless, thankless worlds across the breadth of the Imperium.
You’ll hear conflicting reports on how long life in the Guard can be. One might survive fifteen hours, fifteen tours, fifteen worlds. Truth be told, it doesn’t matter. There is no life outside of the Militarum, no home to return to.
Oh, they made promises to us. Promises of freshly conquered worlds, just crying out for new settlers. Promises of reassignment to some peaceful, backwater garrison.
Just once this campaign is done. Just once more.
But eventually, even the most hopeful among us accepted the truth. The truth was simple. Survival speaks of skill, and skilled soldiers are ever needed to fight the Emperor’s numberless wars.
Throne bless us, a guardsman’s life is one we in the Psykana can only hope for. Sanctioned psykers do not often die peaceful deaths from conventional munitions. It may happen – those who are caught unaware by a las-rifle, blown apart by well-hidden charges, or simply have their heart give out under the strain of their powers.
But they are lucky. Much worse lurks beyond the veil for most of us. The horrors of the warp are hungry, and the burning beacons of psychic minds call to them like nothing else.
It is why the Emperor has seen fit to grace us with companions from the Commissariat.
For they are His watchful eye, always a quick trigger and bolt-round away from ending the threat of demonic possession that walks alongside them.
I knew she would be the one to kill me, one day. Every reading of the tarot, of the cards and arcana and the hidden shades of octarine in the sky has told me so.
But I loved her, and she loved me.
Isn’t that sick? Twisted?
That love can bloom.
She is dead now. Her, along with the rest of the regiment. So much for the damned tarot! I could not save them; I could not save her!
As if the thought, the anger, has summoned them, I feel them gather to me, flocking in nascent swirlings of immaterium that solidify and take shape.
Look! They come now, this chain of wretches and refuse, of my ghosts and my ruin! All that remains of the proud Kalestryan 8th!
Here comes Tarragan, limping along, bearing with quiet agony the burns that span his arm and half his torso. He used to swear that antique plasmagun would be the death of him, and so it was. I remember how the sudden overheat spewed supercritical steam into his skin, how my psy-shield came up seconds too late.
Here comes Andata, blood underneath her skin bubbling sickly green. The thought of that jungle hellhole on Pharlax still makes me gag. I did what I could for her, tried to stitch and lash together her rupturing cells with my thoughts – but it was far, far too late.
Too late!
Always too late!
They march on until a sick, twisted, ghastly recreation of the old regiment stands around me.
And ahead of them all;
watching, judging,
condemning me.
Please, merciful Throne, not her.
Oh, holy Emperor, take my eyes that still see!
They flail and gesture and mumble at me. Frantic, almost desperate. Words and voices try to get through, to tell me something.
My anger hardens my mind and deafens my ears.
No more!
I will bear these shades from the past no more!
I begin chanting the incantation that will banish them.
But my words catch in my throat.
She is trying to speak as she reaches out to me. The dark, black stormcoat of her office billows out from behind her in the psychic wind.
Throne, even this diminished ghost of her is still beautiful.
My love, what are you trying to tell me?
Against all my training, all my indoctrination, I nearly stop.
But there is no stopping now. The incantation must be finished once it starts, and the words that flow from my mouth no longer come of my own accord.
She gasps in pain as she weakens.
I see the regiment fading in slow dissolution, their forms losing solidity and gaining an immaterial translucence.
Then I see what lies beyond.
What they have been protecting me from.
Ruination.
Madness paws at the doors, the attention of things too great and terrible for a single mind to resist. Inhuman horrors strengthen and come forth – they are bold now, brave. The walls that kept them back have been toppled by my own hand, and they clamber eagerly, readily over their ruins.
Her soul – no damned shade, but irrevocably and unmistakably her soul – is fraying, coming apart.
There will be no peace for her now. No Emperor’s holy light; no eternity by his side.
Holy Throne, I am damned! Damned for what I do, and damned for what I don’t!
But here comes a stilling, a silence. A sense of a great will exerting itself for the last time.
Impossibly, she brings up her hand, steady amongst this howling immaterial storm.
The bolt pistol she carries is as real and as solid as it ever was – and the cards of the tarot settle and fall for the last time.
I see now.
Thank you, my love.
For His mercy.
