Saturnine

Mankind has proven to be pathologically incapable of learning from its own mistakes. It blithely remembers the witness of history, but it does not apply the knowledge it gains.

War was a scream in capital letters. It was a noise. It wasn’t even words. It had no syntax, no adjectives, no subtext, no context. It communicated itself as suddenly, simply and unequivocally as a punch in the face. It was a thing, not a story.

I have done my utmost to make this palace a true fortress,’ said Dorn. I’ve built it from the ground up, diligently… some say obsessively… making sure that it is impenetrable and secure. But that is an impossible task. There will always be cracks, there will always be flaws. No fortress of mere stone and steel in our galaxy is truly impervious. So I must place myself directly before those cracks, and block them with my own flesh and fury.’ He gazed at them steadily. ‘I am the fortress now,’ he said.

Censorship is abhorrent to me,’ said Dorn. ‘It runs against the principles of the society we were meant to be building. Great Terra, I’m beginning to sound as high-minded as Guilliman. My point, Kyril, my point is… we’re not building any more, and we had no idea how words could contaminate everything we hold dear. Remembrancers. Theists. Ideas that, in better times, we might at least have gently humoured. I stand opposed to all that woman Keeler represents, butI would defend her right to say it. In better times. But words and ideas have become dangerous, Sindermann. I don’t have to explain that to you, of all people.

We must find our friends where we can, and make those bonds count.

But I want to hear them all,' Hari added quickly. 'I'm sure the various versions out there contain the truth of the story, one way or-' 'You see, there is your mistake,' said Joseph. 'That is the thing about stories. The truth is in all of them. [...] If you're going to be a storyteller, my friend, you should know this. The truth is in all of them.

And there it teetered, on the brink of loss and collapse, for seconds as dense and heavy as centuries.

The insane roar of it, the thunder, sounded like the howl of a tormented god.

It becomes hard to trust as brothers, those you have seen capable of unbridled savagery.

If a supernatural darkness exists, then a supernatural light must exist also...

But duty is cold... It serves its purpose. It has never filled the hollowness inside me. I was born hollow.

I am nothing, and my nothingness gives me great value.

Far too many stories, a million of them, all destined to be lost, for only the last line of the book matters. ' 'Then we had better make sure we're the ones who write it,' said Rann.

Would he make one last command stroke, and know it was done, and only then, look up and see the reality he had wrought?

His fingers scuttled across the throne's haptic surfaces, adjusting, deleting, moving, impelling. Writing history, touch by touch.

Collective effort. That's the point. If I break, or you break, then everyone will break, one by one. If I stand, and you stand, we die, but we are standing.

Historians toil at the past, but they write for the future.

I think that’s a luxury only the Legiones Astartes enjoy, lord,’ she said. ‘We see the distinction very clearly, every time one of you walks into the room. You remind us we are small. You remind us we are lesser things. And very mortal.

It’s plainly becoming quite an imperative. Survival, as I found out a long time ago, triggers the most basic, fundamental responses in an organic form. An individual, a species… It will do almost anything, evolve in almost any way it can, in order to stay alive. I called it the Existential Maturation Trigger.

I have never looked up and cross-checked so much in my life. I said to John French at one point that if I’d been obliged to do this much referencing while working on, say, a major comic crossover event, I’d have quit. It was stupid levels of minutiae. But something kept me going, and I think it was the simple fact that I love Warhammer 40,000 and have become completely committed to finishing – properly – the job we started with Horus Rising. Let’s face it, there is a certain amount of expectation. The ending needs to deliver.

I saw something I can’t explain,’ Hari admitted. ‘There you go,’ said Piers, as if that answered everything. ‘And I grasp it now,’ Hari said to him. Piers simmered down a bit. He studied Hari’s face. ‘Do you?’ he asked. ‘I do,’ said Hari. Piers nodded. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Good, then.’ With some effort, he got back down on his knees, and began scrubbing the banner again. ‘But tell it right, if you’re telling it,’ he added. ‘What I’m saying is, do it justice. Make a proper tale out of it, eh? It wasn’t no banner, it was the Emperor Himself. In person. I stood before the Emperor on the battlefields of Terra, to protect Him. Put myself in harm’s way, for His sake. And it wasn’t no raving World Eater, neither. Make it… say it was the Great Traitor himself. Big, bad Lupercal.’ ‘I’m not putting that,’ said Hari. ‘Why not?’ ‘No one would ever believe it,’ said Hari.

Pitiful. To obtain such gifts and not appreciate them. Mortarion’s tragedy was that he had become what he had spent his life opposing. He hated himself. He could not reconcile his own drastic transmutation in his mind. The pestilential stench seeping from his plate was, as much as anything, shame. For our part, thought Ahriman, you are the enemy, Pale King. How ironic you are content to be known by that title now, the name of the very monsters you used to hunt with such glee. Mortarion, witch-burner, purger of wisdom. Louder than any other voice, yours was raised against our being from the very start. There were other accusers too: Dorn, Russ, Corax, Manus, but none as loud or as self-righteous as you. Because of you, Prospero burned and Tizca fell. Russ was the implement, and dread Horus the architect, but you were the instigator who fomented the prejudice to begin with. We have longed to see you punished for that, and this is sweet indeed. Look what has become of you: Manus is long dead; Corax and Russ are broken, and lost from the field of war; Dorn is cornered and sweating out his last hours in a prison of his own making as oblivion descends. But you. You couldn’t even cling on to your principles, unlike them. You, the loudest critic of all, have become one with us. Your strength counted for nothing. You have submitted to the warp, and you loathe yourself for doing so. And we can now watch with relish as you rot and hate yourself for ever. Behind his gold-and-azure mask, Ahzek Ahriman smiled.

Mankind, in my experience,’ he said, ‘and I think we can at least accept I have more experience of it than most… Mankind has proven to be pathologically incapable of learning from its own mistakes. It blithely remembers the witness of history, but it does not apply the knowledge it gains. The Age of Strife was a terrible thing, inflicted by man upon man. Those few of us who lived through it, and survived it, no matter what part we played, no matter what crimes we committed, we all looked on it during the last years of its horror and said never again. Never again can we do this to ourselves. Yet, mere centuries later, Terra is about to fall, Terra and the galaxy with it, at the hands of engineered humans turning against their creator. This siege, your war, it is self-inflicted.

Dorn shook out his shoulders, and raised his sword and shield. ‘Try me,’ he said. They rushed him.

You don’t find the things you’re looking for if you don’t break some rules. You have to walk in a few dark places on your own.

Anything that is easy enough to understand is not powerful enough to be worshipped.

I dislike secrecy intensely... It is deceit, and it deserves no place among the honest and honourable doctrines of Fair War. Secrets are volatile and unstable. They are never stored safely. When they emerge, the mere fact of them can damage the friends and brothers around us.’ - Primarch Dorn

I believe the young man’s efforts are worthwhile. I see now why the Lord Praetorian initiated the programme, and warranted the return of the remembrancer order. It has value, though I am not sure this is quite how Rogal imagined it. The act of recording history produces a sense of a future. It is, perhaps, the most optimistic thing anyone can do. We will always need to know where we have come from. We will always need to know that we are going somewhere.

I will miss the glory of this day,’ said Sepatus sadly. Sanguinius placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Glory, Bel,’ he said, ‘awaits you wherever you walk.