Editing Chosen of Hecate (section)

===After Nikea===
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Tijo Nosebi sat in an oversized armchair, looking novelly tiny in this study room fit for giants. Before Nikea she had always loved this chair, the enormous size enveloping her in it’s comfort but mostly she’d loved the chance to spend time with Lambach and his inner circle. Now all she felt was sadness.

Where once Lambach had been so gentle, filled with joy and a genuine excitement for the future his father had promised him would come after the Great Crusade. The room itself had been kept well lit and meticulously organised, an open haven for all who sought entrance. Now both the Primarch and the room were shut off, disheveled and sorrowful.

Tijo understood why Lambach felt and reacted the way he did after Nikea. The entire Legion felt it. Everything they had worked for, everything they had held in high regard had been torn down. Many of their greatest heroes sacrificed to the short sightedness of a mere handful of Lambach’s brothers.

The Chosen of Hecate legion, whilst it did not share in the same amounts of celebrated glory as perhaps the Dragoons or Silver Blades had always been a Legion that had diligently done their duty. Bringing world after world into the Imperial fold. With Lambach dreaming of the days to come after the crusade and the new quest to raise mankind to its next, logical, evolutionary level.
Now the warriors of the Chosen of Hecate were showing signs of change, as more and more of the psykers and scholars bled from the legion, fighting in the suicidal Speartip. The ranks now swelled with more warrior like, bloodthirsty Astartes.

On none was this change more evident than on the Primarch himself, his once pristine, gleaming, bone white armour was now marred and pocked with battle damage he had not bothered to have repaired. His hair hung long and unkempt. 

The biggest and most telling change was in his face. Lambach's eyes used to shine with the joy of a joke forever untold, and an easy smile had played across the handsome, clean shaven face. Now those stone grey eyes which Tijo had come to adore were sunken pits of darkness, and while a smile would still split the Primarchs unkempt face from time to time, it was now a smile of sadness and haunted reflection, given for the benefit of others and not truly felt by its owner.

While Tijo sat, wondering how and when the Primarch would return to his normal self, Lambach toyed with the pages of an ancient tome. One the Emperor himself had given to his son from the vaults of Terra, a collection of biographies of ancient Terran rulers known as Presidents. For the longest time Shipmaster and Primarch sat in silence, when seemingly more to himself than to her Lambach Kropor spoke.
“He lied to us all and this falsehood has been there from the very start. My Father is perhaps the greatest monster the Imperium has ever known”. Tijo was forced to sit forward to hear as the Primarch spoke in little more than a hushed whisper.

“I feel your pain, my lord, we all do. But surely the Emperor has his reasons for this ruling, surely things will return to a semblance of normality before too long. Perhaps it is unwise to utter such things, even in your pain” the master of the Starburst was unsure exactly how to respond to his accusations and felt incredibly out of place.

“We enforced the Imperial truth on every new world we discovered and yet we made use of sorcerers and mutants to travel the great ocean” The Primarch continued, finally turning to face her.

“We employed the very things we told the common man did not exist, in order to sustain them.“

The lie could never have lasted, so why was it allowed to happen at all?” as he continued his voice raised slightly, there was a tremble there, one of anger or disgust perhaps both.

“You speak of the Navigators, lord?” she ventured “Without them unifying the many worlds of the Imperium would have been impossible”. 

“Consider this, the Navigators are the last of the old mutants. The most pure and potent example of how the Imperial Truth is a naught but a sham…” Lambach stopped on a particular page of his book before continuing. 

“Just as he has done to my favored sons, once he can establish a means to have no further use for  them, they will be discarded and purged. Make no mistake, He needs the navigator mutants and witches for now” the word was spat, recalling Ashur’s words from Nikea.

“But he will not allow them to endure... He needs them to be replaceable tools, like the Thunder Warriors he employed before us to unify Terra. Like a blunted weapon, to be discarded when no longer useful…

Much like my beloved Chosen” With that the Primarch fell silent again and unsure how to respond Tijo also said nothing. For the time being she assumed the subject was over and that the Primarch had lapsed back into his sullen reverie.

Finally, shattering the silence, the Master of Undeath continued “I can only conclude that He hates this lie of his own making and seeks to end it. He feels that there is no way the Imperium can last, when it relies so heavily on the warp to power its structure”.

Tijo dared not answer, what her master spoke of now bordered on treason, though after everything she felt hard pressed to disagree with what Lambach was saying.

“Always we were told that the Crusade was the end of all things. The most important task any of us could hope to accomplish. I now believe this was yet another falsification. A deception he sold us, his sons and his people, to further another agenda. Perhaps a quest for knowledge or power, I know not, but I intend to find out”.

Tijo recoiled in shock as the manuscript, an ancient heirloom priceless in value, burst into green flames in Lambach’s hands.

The Primarch was more animated now than she had seen him in the longest time.

“One thing is clear to me now. My father is a tyrant, merely using mankind to advance his own ends. I will seek and I WILL find the answers for myself, and I will be damned if I allow anyone to stand in my way…”
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