Fabius Bile

Ruisi grieved over the approaching farewell. He could not imagine how far this world might fall without Corax's guidance. But however fiercely he resisted it, time continued to pass. At last, the day of parting arrived.

An immense Imperial fleet pierced the thick cloud cover, revealing humanity's might for the first time to people who had been lost in darkness for so long. Golden double-headed eagles gleamed coldly high above. The sight stunned everyone. Here was the Emperor's redemption, his miracle. Countless people fell to their knees crying his name, not daring the slightest irreverence.

Corax offered Ruisi a few final words of advice, then left. The boy watched his starship soar into the sky, leaving only a brilliant trail. Tears streamed down his face. The future filled him with uncertainty. Yet that uncertainty soon began to fade.

The day after the fleet's arrival, every child on the planet was ordered to attend school. The buildings did not yet exist, but Ruisi and the others had to go all the same. With no teachers available, Imperial soldiers trained them and priests instructed them. They were taught to obey discipline, restrain their desires, shun fleeting sensual pleasures, and maintain absolute faith in and loyalty to the Emperor. They were to be ready at all times to give themselves to the Regent's great design.

At this school that had yet to be built, Ruisi learned another great name: Roboute Guilliman. Countless people praised it. Whenever the soldiers and priests teaching him spoke that name, devotion and fervor came over them unbidden. He learned that humanity's redemption had begun with this great man's awakening.

His rank stood second only to the Emperor's. His grand design encompassed every human world. Vast fleets followed his will, rescuing lost planets and bringing them back under Imperial rule. Ruisi could feel the changes that man had brought in his own life.

Guilliman's comprehensive laws came to Nostramo. Stern magistrates traveled to every corner of the planet, reading death sentences to those who refused the law. These executors of the great Regent's will showed no mercy. Their faces were so cold as they pronounced judgment that many thought they were merely machines of steel.

Some people had begun to stir when Corax left. They were horrified to discover that an even stricter administration had arrived. Even insulting someone in the street brought severe legal punishment. Everyone had to answer for every word and deed.

Those accustomed to abusing others for their own amusement discovered, painfully, that their daily earnings could not cover the compensation they owed. If they persisted, behaved like thugs, and tried to defy the law, they received neither tolerance nor forgiveness. They were handed over to people dressed in black.

Every month, a pitch-black ship came to the planet. Those declared beyond redemption were sent aboard. Every guard regarded the prisoners consigned to that black ship with utter contempt.

An aura of forbidding menace surrounded its crew. Hardened criminals who boasted of fearing nothing and of cutting their way from one end of a street to the other wet themselves and burst into tears at the sight of those black-clad figures. They sobbed confessions, repented, and swore to change, begging only not to be taken away. But the Imperium offered no forgiveness. When they had stubbornly chosen their course, they had passed the point of return.

The black-clad warriors carried a terrible presence. Like the natural enemies of sinners, they easily broke even hearts thought beyond redemption. Many wondered whether these men had killed countless wrongdoers. They were right. The warriors had delivered innumerable aliens and human traitors to Argent energy plants, personally feeding them into production lines where death came only after terrible suffering.

Amid so much resentment, the black-clad warriors had received a kind of blessing. Anyone who believed themselves guilty would feel fear beneath their gaze.

Discovering the benefits of law, many people learned to settle disputes without violence. They sought legal punishment for those who infringed upon their rights. With evil restrained, human kindness could emerge. Once the people of Nostramo no longer had to fear that decency would cost them their lives, the good buried within them began to surface.

Watching former thugs learn to speak calmly to others, Ruisi understood Roboute Guilliman's painstaking intentions. The great man's achievement thrilled him. He sought to change the darkness rooted in the human heart, restraining it through law and teaching people through knowledge and faith.

Ruisi drank in every scrap of knowledge he could. He felt he must grow up as quickly as possible and contribute to this great man's work.

Elsewhere, the world of Kadur, near the Eye of Terror, received a new visitor. He was immensely tall, with a savage scar across his face and a blood-red longsword at his waist.

He was the younger Fulgrim, who had abandoned his pursuit of perfection. He understood that continuing to seek it would inevitably lead him down his predecessor's path. He had therefore ruined his own flawless face, a constant reminder never to stray from the proper road again. He had come to get close to one man and kill him: Fabius Bile, the wicked scholar who had created him. The younger Fulgrim lacked the infiltration skills of Corax or Curze. Even so, as a Primarch's clone, his abilities were extraordinary.

After sending a message to the expeditionary fleet, he slipped easily onto the world. A renegade Chapter occupied it. Once called the Brass Dragons, they had fought for the Emperor for five millennia. But after the crisis of the Endless Night, they had betrayed the Imperium, joined Abaddon's Black Legion, and renamed themselves the Screaming Chaos warband.

Recent intelligence had told the former Brass Dragons Chapter Master that Imperial expeditionary fleets were campaigning everywhere. His old comrades were sweeping aside humanity's enemies with incomparable strength. He followed the fortunes of every Chaos warband and discovered something deeply disheartening. Forces once invincible, which had caused the Imperium enormous trouble, now broke under the tread of its armies. With equal numbers, they were not even worthy opponents. They needed several times the Imperial strength merely to put up a resistance. The realization left him dejected.

Why had the Warp beaten him up when he was loyal to the Imperium, only for the Imperium to beat him up now that he had turned to Chaos?

Soon, however, another ally arrived: Fabius Bile, who had fled here from Lagnas. The former Brass Dragons commander knew his reputation. Bile had been an Apothecary of the traitorous Emperor's Children. His activities across the galaxy had earned him many terrible names from the wretched victims of his experiments: Flayer, Gene-Daemon, the horrifying mad scientist, and more.

Every planet he touched was left with horrors fashioned through his warped biological knowledge. His insane experiments had contaminated the genetic stock of many human worlds. The people he altered became violent, treacherous, deranged, and cruel, like daemons in human form. He called them his New Men. For ten thousand years he had worked to spread them, traveling through rebellious sectors and worlds controlled by Chaos warbands, peddling his dreadful genetic technologies. The Imperium never ceased wanting him dead, lest his depredations drag humanity into the abyss.

For the commander of the Screaming warband, however, Bile's arrival offered hope. The powerful human armies had clearly undergone some form of enhancement. Perhaps Bile could provide a way to strengthen his own warriors and let him stand against the Imperium. Bile, in turn, urgently needed a force to shelter him for a time. On that basis, the two formed an alliance.

Bile's laboratory was a place of wonders and terror, the largest chamber aboard the warship. Mechanically altered living corpses stood throughout it. Power conduits and sparking pipes lined the high ceiling. In dark corners, combat servitors watched for any intruder. Their feet had been replaced by square gyroscopic bases. As the Chapter Master passed, these mindless servants swung their guns toward him. Only when an aged voice spoke did they slowly turn their heads away.

He continued past flesh-culture vats and cloning tanks. Creatures survived inside on degraded nutrient gel. Some were active enough to thrash and tumble through the fluid. Mouths full of sharp teeth pressed against reinforced glass, as though smiling a welcome to the visitor.

“Begin with the lateral incision. Insert it into the center first, then cut it open.” The Chapter Master followed the rough voice. At the far end, he saw a pale face and a pair of cold eyes. Those were not what frightened him.

What frightened him was the sight of Fabius Bile lying upon a flat surgical table. The terrifying mad scientist was dissecting himself. Numerous spiderlike mechanical limbs extended from his body.

Each limb carried surgical instruments: blades, serrated saws, scissors, syringes, and drills. They opened his body, turned over his organs, and treated wounds that should have been fatal.

The Chapter Master marveled at the lunatic, yet felt a little more confident. Only someone this mad could oppose the Imperium of Man's new armies.

Bile regarded the man who had entered his laboratory with an unreadable gaze. His voice was hoarse and venomous. “What are you doing here?”

“The Imperium's forces are closing in. You must fulfill your promise and enhance my warriors as soon as possible. Otherwise, its armies will destroy us both.”