“But why?”

“Because knowledge is a deadly friend, if no one sets the rules. It is our master’s wish that I illuminate this mortal,” said Ahriman. “Or do you doubt the word of the Crimson King?”

Many of the Emperor’s sons had earned honourable names over the decades of war, not least of whom was Horus Lupercal, Primarch of the Luna Wolves, beloved son of the Emperor. Fulgrim’s warriors knew their leader as the Phoenician, and the First Legion was led by the Lion. Magnus alone of his brothers had earned a series of less than flattering names over the decades of war: Sorcerer… Warlock…

So when Ahriman had heard his primarch was known among the 28th Expedition’s remembrancers as the Crimson King, he had allowed the name to stand.

Sobek bowed and said, “Never, my lord. Lord Magnus is the fountainhead of our Legion, and I will never doubt his course, no matter what.”

Ahriman nodded, sensing the presence of Lemuel Gaumon beyond the canopy of his pavilion. He felt the man’s aura, its light dull and unfocussed among the glittering flares of his fellow legionaries. Where they shone with purity and focus, Gaumon’s was blurred and raw, like an unshielded lumen globe, bright in its own way, but unpleasant to look upon for more than a moment.

“Gaumon is without, Sobek,” said Ahriman. “Send him in.”

Sobek nodded and left the pavilion, returning a moment later with a heavyset man dressed in a long crimson robe with loose sleeves and a crest of one of the Nordafrik conclaves stitched on his left breast, Sangha, if Ahriman remembered correctly. Lemuel’s skin was dark, though not the dark of those who had been tanned by the Aghoru sun. Ahriman smelled the man’s body odour even over the megaleion oil coating his skin.

“Welcome,” said Ahriman, modulating his accent to a more natural, fluid tone and indicating the rug beside the brazier. “Please, sit.”

Lemuel lowered himself to the rag, clutching a battered notebook to his chest as Sobek withdrew, leaving them alone.

Ahriman sat before Lemuel and said, “I am Ahzek Ahriman, Chief Librarian of the Thousand Sons.” Lemuel nodded vigorously.

“I know who you are, my lord,” he said. “I’m honoured you sent for me.”

“Do you know why I sent for you?”

“I confess I do not.”

“It is because you have power, Lemuel Gaumon,” said Ahriman. “You can see the currents of the aether that flow through the world from the Great Ocean. You may not know the names, but you know of what I speak.”

Lemuel shook his head, flustered and caught off guard.

“I think you must be mistaken, my lord,” said Lemuel, and Ahriman laughed at the sudden panic in his aura.

Lemuel held up his notebook and said, “Please, my lord, I am just a humble remembrancer.”

“No,” said Ahriman, leaning forward and projecting a measure of fire into his aura. “You are far more than that. You are a wielder of sorcery, a witch!”

It was a simple trick, an invisible domination to cow weaker minds. The effect was immediate. Waves of fear and guilt washed from Lemuel in a tide. Ahriman rose through the Enumerations to shield himself from the man’s raw terror.

“Please… I do no harm to anyone,” pleaded Lemuel. “I’m not a witch, I swear, I just read old books. I don’t know any spells or anything, please!”

“Be at peace, Lemuel,” chuckled Ahriman, holding up an outstretched hand. “I am teasing you. I am no fool of a witch hunter, and did not summon you to condemn you. I am going to liberate you.”

“Liberate me?” asked Lemuel, his breathing returning to normal. “From what?”

“From your blindness and limitations,” said Ahriman. ‘You have power, but you do not know how to wield it with any skill. I can show you how you can use what power you have, and I can show you how to use it to see things you cannot imagine.”

Ahriman read the suspicion in Lemuel’s aura, and eased it with a nudge of his own powers, as an animal is calmed by soft words and a gentle touch. The man had no barriers whatsoever in his mind, his psyche undefended and open to the tides of the Great Ocean. In that instant of contact, Ahriman knew the man’s every secret. He saw the barb of sorrow in the man’s heart and mellowed, understanding that the grief driving him echoed his own.

Power was no salve to that grief, and Lemuel Gaumon would realise that in time. That crashing realisation could wait though; there was no need to dash his hopes just yet.

“You are so vulnerable, and you don’t even realise it,” said Ahriman softly.

“My lord?”

“Tell me what you know of the Great Ocean.”

“I don’t know that term.”

“The warp,” said Ahriman. “The empyrean.”

“Oh. Not much really,” admitted Lemuel. He took a deep breath before continuing, like a student afraid of giving the wrong answer. “It’s a kind of higher dimension, a psychic realm where starships can travel far faster than normal. It allows astrotelepaths to communicate and, well, that’s about it.”

“That is broadly true, but the Great Ocean is so much more than that, Lemuel. It is the home of the Primordial Creator, the energy that drives all things. It is a reflection of our universe and we are a reflection of it. What occurs in one affects the other, and like a planetary ocean, it is not without its predators. Your mind, dull though it is, shines like a beacon in the ocean for the creatures that lurk in its depths. Were I to allow you to use your powers unchecked, you would soon be dead.”

Lemuel swallowed and placed the notebook beside him.

“I had no idea,” he said. “I just thought… I mean, I don’t know what I thought. I figured I was able to tap into parts of my mind others weren’t able to. I could see lights around people, their auras, and I learned to read them, to understand what they were feeling. Does that make sense?”

“It makes perfect sense. Those lights, as you call them, are aetheric echoes of a person’s emotion, health and power. A shadow self of that person exists in the Great Ocean, a reflection of their psyche that imprints itself in its currents.”

Lemuel shook his head with a wry smile and said, “This is a lot to take in, my lord.”

“I understand that,” said Ahriman. “I do not expect you to absorb it all just now. You will become my Probationer, and begin your studies on the morrow.”

“Do I have a choice in this?”

“Not if you want to live.”

“Tomorrow,” said Lemuel. “Lucky I happened to be selected for the 28th Expedition, eh?”

“If there is one thing I have come to know in my long years of study, it is that there is no such thing as luck when it comes to the positioning of the universe’s chess pieces. Your coming here was no accident. I was meantto train you. I have seen it,” said Ahriman.

“You saw the future?” asked Lemuel. “You knew I was going to be here and that this was all going to happen?”

“Many years ago, I saw you standing on the streets of Prospero in the robes of a Neophyte.”

“On Prospero!” said Lemuel, his aura shimmering with his excitement. “And a Neophyte, that’s one of your ranks, isn’t it?”

“It is,” confirmed Ahriman, “a very low one.”

“And you saw this? It’s the future? That’s amazing!”

Ahriman smiled at how easily mortals were impressed by such powers. How impressed and, more often, how frightened.

“In years past, I could travel the Great Ocean and open my eyes to a world of potential futures,” explained Ahriman. “To do that is no great trick, even mortals can do it. But to read those currents and sort meaning and truth from the chaos is a skill beyond all but the most gifted of seers.”

“Will I be able read it?”

“No,” said Ahriman, “not without decades of training by the Corvidae. To read the multi-dimensional patterns of the Great Ocean and lift meaning from the meaningless requires two modalities of thought. Firstly, the rapid, accurate and efficient movement of thought from concept to concept, whereby all ideas become one; and secondly, the halting of thought altogether, were one idea is reduced to nothing. I have an eidetic memory, a mind crafted by the greatest technologists of the forgotten ages that allows me to do this. You do not.”