Iskandar Khayon

Khayon in the cobalt blue of the Thousand Sons.

"You have lost so much lore that I can barely comprehend where your ignorance ends and your innocence begins."

– Iskandar Khayon, on the Inquisition

Iskandar Khayon is the Lord Vigilator of the Black Legion and one of the founding members. Formerly a Sorcerer of the Thousand Sons, who know him as Khayon the Black due to his change of allegiance and perceived betrayal of his brothers, he is a member of the Ezekarion (Abaddon's inner circle). The Black Legion calls him the Kingbreaker, as he apparently kicked Magnus' lazy ass to make him comply with Abaddon's plans. He has a multitude of other names and titles, most of which (he claims) are falsely attributed to him.

He's the narrator and main character of the novel Talon of Horus.

Pre-Heresy

A Prospero native, Khayon experienced tragedy at an early age when his sister Itzara was attacked by a nasty psychic brain parasite which destroyed much of her brain tissue. After it became clear that she would never function again, he decided (in an attempt to keep some of her still alive) to hand her over to the Adeptus Mechanicus, who were trying to create an advanced machine-spirit. She survived the procedure, but due to the amount of secondary brains and mechanical attachments that were grafted onto her, she lost all of her sense of individuality, becoming the Anamnesis, one of the most advanced machine-spirits ever created. She was installed in the Thousand Sons cruiser Tlaloc.

Khayon served honorably in the Great Crusade. Unlike a lot of major Chaos characters, he wasn't really a notable in his legion, being a competent sorcerer and commander but otherwise just another run-of-the-mill legionary. As of the limited edition book 'The Abyssal Edge', part of the 'Sons of the Emperor' anthology, it is revealed that he was one of the Khenetai Blades, the Order of the Jackal, during the Crusade. He managed to escape the Burning of Prospero, killing a Space Wolf champion by literally dismantling him at the molecular level and taking his axe, Saern. He was not, however, one of the Thousand Sons that Magnus took with him to the Planet of Sorcerers, and remained in the wreckage of Prospero until he was rescued by Lheorvine Ukris, a World Eaters captain. The two became allies and (occasional) friends. Luckily he didn't meet the other World Eaters force that Khârn led to Prospero, which ended up hunting down some returned Thousand Sons and killing all but one.

He was at the Siege of Terra, where he acquired a serious grudge against the Emperor's Children for leaving their positions during the attack on the Imperial Palace and murderfucking Terran civilians instead.

Post-Heresy

He eventually made his way to Sortiarius when Ahriman was in the process of enacting the Rubric, but (obviously) failed to stop him. He's understandably still cross about this, as the Rubric turned his oldest friend into an automaton. After the disaster, he fled in the Tlaloc along with a few allies and some Rubricae, forming the Kha'Sherhan warband. Over the next few centuries, he roamed the Eye of Terror, working for various factions and acquiring an awesome collection of old Mechanicus battle robots. Because of the tiny size of his warband, he used these robots to prevent boarders from taking the Tlaloc. It was during this time as well that he began binding daemons, using a deck of tarot cards to bind and summon them when necessary. It is unrecorded whether he ever traded with other sorcerers for rare cards or if he fought and defeated his opponents by challenging them to a children's card game, complete with his cards manipulating reality to represent themselves. The most potent of these was the Ragged Knight, an ancient Bloodthirster born from the wanton bloodshed of the Massacre at Béziers.

Founding the Black Legion

When the former Justaerin Falkus Kibre sent out a call for aid with finding the Vengeful Spirit, Khayon responded (secretly hoping that if he found the vessel, he could install the Anamnesis as its machine-spirit and claim it as his own). He, Kibre, and Lheorvine eventually found the vessel (and Abaddon) deep in the Eye of Terror. The news that Fabius Bile was trying to clone Horus finally got Abaddon off his ass. The Vengeful Spirit, now with the Anamnesis as its machine-spirit, headed for Harmony, where Khayon psychically threw the now-abandoned Tlaloc at the planet, destroying the main Emperor's Children stronghold. During the confrontation with Bile aboard the latter's cruiser, he fought the clone-Horus alongside the rest of Abaddon's forces.

His exploits after the founding of the Black Legion aren't known exactly, and the line between falsehoods and facts is somewhat blurry (as Khayon himself notes.) He was present during the Seventh Black Crusade, where the Black Legion destroyed most of the Blood Angels. Immediately after the Legion's founding, he became Abaddon's go-to assassin. When he was sent after Thagus Daravek, however, he ran into difficulties, leading to a feud with the Lord of Hosts. After his fifth run at the final boss failed, Abbadon sent him to the former tomb of Horus, where a Black Templar strike-cruiser had crashed. Khayon found plenty of dead Templars and was confused by all the new gear. So he Ate the brains and gained its knowledge to learn of all the new stuff happening back in reality. When rescuing a Lady Inquisitor she told them how the Imperium turned to shit with its new Religion. Much Rage, Lulz and Manly Tears were had. Hearing about Abbadon and his desire for Drach'nyen, Khayon didn't trust the messenger. But Abby was tempted by the idea of EPIC NEW GEAR and launched the first Black Crusade. Which Daravek also wanted to do and followed. Which brought Khayon and Daravek to fightan again. It turned out that Daravek had captured the remains of Khayon's familiar (which had part of his soul bound through it) and used it to subvert Khayon whenever they were close. Khayon was not amused and finished his job.

As of the Thirteenth Black Crusade, he managed to infiltrate Imperial space and land on Terra, where he turned himself in to the Inquisition on Abaddon's orders in order to personally tell the Emperor that the Imperium cannot win the war that is coming. Last mention at time of writing has him as a tortured prisoner of the Inquisition on Terra in 'Watchers of the Throne'.

The Truth

Khayon makes a number of claims in the novels that are dubious, which raises questions about him telling the truth.

Some of his claims include:

• Claiming to have forced Magnus to kneel before Abbadon. (By himself or with the whole Black Legion is unknown so far.)
• His claim that the Vengeful Spirit is filled with crystal ghosts including one of Sanguinius.
• That a Dark Eldar can live within the Eye of Terror (like her Elders, Nefertari needed to "feed" far more often than usual, frequently deterioated quickly, and - perhaps the biggest reason she shouldn't be able to survive there - she ISN'T technically alive).
• Plenty of the Daemon Primarchs have been fought, defeated, and threatened by normal or elite Astartes without any special powers other than numbers and determination. We haven't seen Khayon's "kingbreaking" though so we don't know yet. Given how it's described it's likely to be false, since it sounds like a 1 on 1 match with him against a Primarch.
• The one about Ghosts on the Vengeful Spirit is plausible just because it can not be the weirdest thing happening on the ship, although it raises the question of how there's any space at all on that ship given the massive amount of deaths that occur on it from its slaves alone, or the echoes of dying moments from the greatest moment for Chaos on the Arch-Traitors flagship. I'd be less surprised about crystal ghosts than I would the cannon shooting skulls, a roof made of human teeth, the walls suddenly changing position, or that giant snake skeleton in the hold that could swallow a land raider.
• The Dark Eldar is bullshit even if she was feeding on souls like she would in Commoragh just a lot more frequently. It's about as believable as when the Black-Irish Leper did it.

Some of his claims are a bit WAT until you begin to consider his audience. He is being interrogated by the Inquisition, the most reasonable members of the Imperium when it comes to Chaos. Even if Khayon is lying, would the Inquisition believe anything he says anyway? If he's lying to be Abbadon's hype-man he certainly doesn't need to since the Imperium regards Abbadon as the greatest threat anyway. As to some of his more outlandish claims, some explanations are plausible.

Khayon might lie to convert someone or trick them to Chaos, but he might be simply delivering the final declaration of The Long War. He could be reciting the history of the Black Legion as he knows it, or he could be full of shit.

Whichever is true Khayon himself declares he is telling the truth even when he would rather lie.

If Iskandar is lying to the Inquisition we may never find out the truth anyway. He might be speaking the truth. Or none of it is actually true. Or maybe the truth is somewhere "in the grey."

The Breakdown

Reasons why Iskandar is cool:

1. Despite having the power and knowledge to become a Warlord in his own right, he stays truly loyal to his lord Abaddon because of his deep belief in the righteousness of The Long War. Where most Chaotic underlings scheme and jockey for dominance, Iskandar still believes in justice, honor, and loyalty, as do many within the Black Legion.

2. He's "evil" by most human reckoning, but his perspectives and morals are consistant enough that he avoids the Cartoon Villain Syndrome that plagues so many depictions of Chaos Astartes. Yeah, he'll throw humans to a torturous death, but he's watched his entire world and almost every mortal on it die in agony. Yeah, he's kind of a lapdog to Abaddon, but you can see his resentment for his broken legion and his disgust at the petty squabbles the legions now war over. He's evil, but you can understand and sympathize with the man.

3. He actually uses tactics. Most sorcerers' approach to combat is to boil someone's insides or throw doombolts. Iskandar gets creative. When he can he'll spend months in advance laying traps, sabotaging minds, weakening infrastructure. It's like the best parts of Raven Guard and Alpha Legion doctrine backed by the psychic might of a sorcerer lord. In this sense he is more of a tactician who also conveniently happens to have access to psychic powers to increase his tactical options over a regular tactician.

4. Using his powers for complex stuff requires serious work while sat in a very uncomfortable pose. He has to sit there the whole time, even in the warp where time can be very dickish. And when it's done he has to recuperate quite a long time in some cases. Unable to even drink water. Makes you wonder how he supposedly took down Magnus.

5. He's an elegan\t g\entleman able to charm a smile out of an inquisitor.

6. That! Bitchin'! Helm!

Reasons why Iskandar is also a Mary Sue:

0. He is always around when the important shit happens, even if he's on the wrong ship.

1. He's a Legionnaire who defeated and humiliated his own Primarch. Off screen.

2. He has a Yu-Gi-Oh style deck of Tarot cards with bound daemons he can summon, which includes greater daemons like Bloodthirsters, and when he's finished he can banish them easily. Yes, a SORCERER has a pet bloodthirster.

3. His hetero-lifemate NOT!girlfriend is a Dark Eldar Scourge (read: an edgy elf with angel wings) who can solo whole squads of marines. She, an Eldar, can live with him INSIDE THE EYE OF TERROR just because. He also manages to prevent Slaanesh from eating her by "binding her soul to her flesh". In itself this is stupid because it raises the question of why the Sons don't find a way to restore the Rubric Marines in a similar manner, or why the Eldar as a whole don't do this. No, having your soul go to a god you made isn't the same thing as making your body immortal while permanently stopping a different god from eating you (especially if you accomplish this while they're trying to eat you). It makes the Ynnead gambit entirely pointless. Any crashing sounds you hear are Cegorach and Tzeentch rolling on the floor with laughter as a Chaos Sorcerer has the key to saving the Eldar race.

4. Managed to befriend a daemon. Unlike most familiars who betrayed their masters at Prospero Khayon's stayed loyal and became a teleporting daemon wolf who, again, can solo whole squads of marines, until it was destroyed by Horus' clone.

5. His ship has a chick in a stasis tube serving as a machine spirit, but also controling whole armies of Mechanicus robots.

6. He has a super-force sword made from shards of Sanguinius's sword and crystal-ghost that cuts through everything (including a power axe and the terminator armor behind it,) because it's awesome. It even cuts through reality so he can walk through the warp, while in the actual warp anyway. Yes a warp sorcerer living in the warp uses a super-sword to walk through the super warp.

7. He's an elegan\t g\entleman Chaos Space Marine able to charm a smile out of an inquisitor.

8. Being the second-most powerful sorcerer among the Thousand Sons after Ahriman, (and possibly even more powerful seeing as how he supposedly took down Magnus) means he is the most powerful native Prosperine Sorcerer alive.

9. Abaddon lured Khayon to the Vengeful Spirit, possibly all to get Khayon's sister to drive the thing. Khayon, the one Thousand Son not worshipping Tzeentch, is an extra in Abaddon's plan for a naked chick ship-valet. Any crashing you hear is Tzeentch rolling on all the floors laughing.

10. He kills Space Wolves in melee, then when he gets tired just does it by thinking. (Admittedly he is still a Space Marine and a talented swordsman from the Thousand Sons, so he could kill another space marine feasibly.)

11. He psychically "tugged" his own ship while simultaneously navigating Abaddons dream boat through hell for months straight, only to fling it like a dart out of hell into the planet below and deep impacted the entire emperors children legion present (some 20 times the size of the new black legion) in an extinction level event. If true this would put him on the same level as Magnus in terms of psychic power, if he isn't above him.