Editing Shakya Vardhana (section)

===Youth===
Shakya Vardhana was one of the twenty Primarchs created in the Emperor's laboratory deep beneath the Himalayzian Mountains.  As he and his brothers gestated in their pods, the malfeasance of the Ruinous Powers stole away all save Hektor and sent them tumbling through the Warp.  Lost to the Emperor and drifting beyond space and time, the Vardhana's containment pod was damaged and the infant awakened to gaze upon the madness of the Immateria.  The sight forever changed his eyes, leaving them sightless pools of shifting, liquid silver.

[[File:Sci fi landscape speedpaint by incineratedmortality-d48ffqr.jpg|thumb|right|250px|The outskirts of Pulvar and the wastes of Simurgh]]
Shakya Vardhana's damaged capsule crashed near the hive '''Pulvar''' on the planet '''Simurgh'''.  Aristocrats and merchants of Pulvar were busy with their amusements and noticed nothing.  The soldiers saw the light in the sky and decided it was a problem for the aviators, the aviators saw the object falling towards the ground and thought the soldiers would deal with it.  Pulvar's workmen heard the crash, but were busy with their duties.  It was only the ''Gosheni'' - the tinkers and scavengers of Simurgh - who came out to investigate.  The band that laid claim to Shakya's pod were well-pleased at their find, thinking that the valuable materials could slowly be sold off to fill their bellies.  All were surprised to hear the soft cooing of an infant from within, and immediately began a discussion of to do with him.  Some felt that he would only be a liability to the group.  But dark-haired Bithia declared that the infant had been sent from the heavens to replace the one she had lost that same day, and those who had wished Shakya gone from their ranks were too ashamed to deny her.

For a time, Bithia boasted of the heaven-sent nature of her adopted son and her kin were skeptical.  Yet the more perceptive of the Gosheni took note that Shakya was perhaps even more extraordinary than his mother claimed.  Just a month after being rescued from his containment pod, Shakya had the size of a four year-old child and spoke with the fluency and insight of an adult.  This swift maturation and prodigy soon convinced all who met him that the boy was something supernatural.  Many wondered at how his blindness hindered him little, for his other senses were extraordinarily sharp.  More extraordinary still was his gift of prophecy.  Shakya's advice, though sometimes obscure, came to be sought out throughout Pulvar until the Hive's ruler, '''Ashpenaz the Golden''', summoned the Primarch for an audience.  Unlike the others who requested the Primarch's advice Ashpenaz was not accustomed to asking for anything.  He simply demanded that Shakya serve him directly as a seer and in any other capacity the tyrant desired.

Shakya rejected Ashpenaz, telling the tyrant, ''"It is not my fate to serve you.  We shall both render service unto my Father who dwells above, although only my sons will remember your name."''  This calm retort drove the autocrat into a rage and he ordered his guards to drag the Emperor's son into the torture chamber.  Though the Primarch could easily have slain his assailants, he meekly put himself in their hands and endured the lash, the rack, and worse for three days.  Through all these indignities, Shakya never cried out in pain nor even winced at the mortification of his flesh.  At the end, the torturers of Pulvar could only report that they now wept whenever they thought of their old craft.

[[File:Cyborg_by_molee.jpg|thumb|200px|Cyber-gladiator of Pulvar]]
Asphenaz the Golden realised that Shakya could not be broken, but did not yet think himself defeated.  Resigned to destroying that which he could not possess, he commanded his men to throw the Primarch into a pit of cybernetically-deformed gladiators.  Asphenaz favoured using these wretches, driven mad with the pain of their deadly implants, to gain some amusement from the disposal of his enemies.  Yet when the gates were thrown open and the cyber-gladiators goaded towards Shakya, the machine-men walked towards him with their weapons lowered.  The son of the Emperor spread his arms in welcome to the gladiators and they knelt at his feet, worshipping the being whose presence eased their torment.  As Shakya laid a soothing hand on one of the mutilated men, Ashpenaz felt his own heart shrink in his chest.  Although the tyrant was lord of Pulvar and it surrounds, his would-be victim, clad only in the patchwork robe of a Gosheni, had mastered him without so much as an angry word.  Ashpenaz the Golden fell to his knees and begged Shakya Vardhana to forgive him, but the Primarch smiled warmly in response and denied the need.  It had always been their fate to come together in this way.

Under the guidance of the Primarch, Ashpenaz sought to reform his laws and military.  But conspirators among the aristocracy, jealous of their privileges, rose up to overthrow the old tyrant.  The Vardhana and his Gosheni family saw Ashpenaz smuggled out of Pulvar.  A small group of their followers fled to the nearby hive '''Yathrib''', where the Gosheni were many and the laws were lax.  In the depths of Yathrib, Shakya and Ashpenaz (now devoted to the Primarch) trained an army of outcasts to avenge the cruelties of Pulvar.  Such an endeavour could not be kept entirely secret, even from so lax a regime as that of Yathrib, but the Vardhana won the ordinary soldiers of the hive to his cause and they were glad to stay silent for him.  After three months of preparation, Shakya Vardhana came to the Magistrix of Yathrib and informed her that she would now rule in the name of his Father.  The outraged Magistrix ordered her men to throw out the upstart, but even her bodyguards had changed their loyalty.

From the victory at Yathrib, followed shortly by a campaign against Pulvar, Shakya Vardhana began to unify battered Simurgh.  It is said that in this time the Primarch never raised his voice in anger, let alone struck another being.  His fearlessness and generosity of spirit, together with the miraculous deeds he performed swayed many to his side.  Those who stood against the Vardhana swiftly learned that the Goshenis' lives in the hidden places of the planet's underhives had taught them much about stealth, raiding, and manoeuvre, all skills that could be applied to warfare.  The Gosheni struck from beneath without warning and seemed to disappear in an instant, a feat attributed to the Vardhana's spiritual power.

Unlike many of his warrior brothers, Shakya Vardhana did not rule in person.  He anointed Ashpenaz the Golden as the Dictator of Simurgh, content with the title of "advisor".  Few dared to question this regime, awed by the Primarch's power and welcoming the just rule of Ashpenaz.  Under the guidance of the Vardhana, Simurgh's dictator passed many reforms to the benefit of the people and supervised great engineering projects to cleanse the planet's hives of filth and squalor.  Justice became the shield of the meek rather than the sword of the strong, and the population became civilised without growing degenerate.  This enlightened despotism lasted until an even greater power arrived on the Hive World.

While Ashpenaz dealt with the day-to-day rule of Simurgh, Shakya Vardhana's visions of the future grew much more powerful.  Storms of darkness roiled across the [[Galaxy (Hektor Heresy)|galaxy]], clouding the light within the hearts of men.  But the Eagle took flight from his nest and soared through space, kindling a human radiance to outshine the stars.  Shakya saw the Eagle arrayed in gold, and bearing his mighty spear and staff of office arrive on Simurgh and bear him away.  And he saw hints of the Eagle in peril, but the Primarch's sight could not pierce the veil that the Adversary had placed upon this danger.  The whispers of this last vision greatly troubled Shakya.  He spent much of his time in seclusion and meditation, attempting to finally break down the veil to the future and discover the identity of the Eagle's nemesis.

[[File:Emperor_of_mankind_by_esoluna-d307owr.jpg|thumb|200px|The Emperor of Mankind]]
The Emperor, too, was looking into the strands of fate.  But His visions were focused on the fate of His long lost sons, and Simurgh came to loom large in His sight.  The sign of a Primarch's hand was clear in this peaceful, obedient world, productive and harmonious yet still outside of the embrace of the Imperium.  When the [[Great Crusade (Hektor Heresy)|Great Crusade]] reached Simurgh's system the Emperor Himself landed upon the Hive World and went on foot with a host of his golden-armoured warriors to find Shakya Vardhana.

Ashpenaz the Golden had once been a fool, but the scales had been lifted from his eyes long ago.  As soon as he heard the news of the Emperor's coming, he ordered his soldiers to welcome the starfarers and personally went to rouse Shakya from his meditations, hastening the Primarch to meet the god-like being who had landed on Simurgh.  The meeting was as subdued affair as was possible, with no bodyguards or courtiers present.  The Vardhana and Ashpenaz bade greeting to [[Hektor Cincinnatus]] and [[Arelex Orannis]], who entered first as heralds of the Emperor.  Shakya Vardhana's visionary sight showed him an image of Hektor at the head of the greatest army the Galaxy had ever seen, yet hollow and broken inside.  He saw Arelex take wound after wound in defence of his sons, until his body was entirely replaced by machines.  But when the Emperor himself entered, the Vardhana saw no prophetic allegory.  Once exposed to the healing light of his father, the Primarch's eyes returned to seeing the present world.  Yet the glory of the Emperor was too much for the mortal eyes of Ashpenaz.  From that day on, the old tyrant saw nothing but an after-image of humanity's master.  He abdicated in favour of dark-haired Bithia, the woman who had adopted Shakya, and went to his grave without a word of complaint.

There was no need for the reunited Father and son to argue.  Shakya Vardhana put himself at the Emperor's disposal and the ruler of mankind was glad to appoint his son as the leader of the Nineteenth Legion, the Crimson Hawks.  On their voyage back to Terra, the two would discuss many things, including Shakya's troubling visions of a danger to the Imperium.  Though the Emperor took his son seriously, he explained to Shakya that the veil over the looming dangers was not placed there by an adversary, but represented the vagaries of fate.  Whatever perils would be faced were not yet determined, and so could not be foreseen.  Taking Shakya into his confidence, the Emperor charged his son with preparing the Nineteenth Legion not for the conquest of the Galaxy, but the defence of that conquest against whatever peril would emerge.