Chapter 27: You, Go Kill the Emperor

"Khorne, is that the name of a demon?"
Aaron looked up with curious eyes, waving the nail in his hand as if eager to put it to use.
Anda pressed a hand to his forehead, his brows furrowed tightly:
"Don't make me see Khorne and a nail in the same context; it always gives me such a headache. The memories of the future are not entirely clear, and damn it, what kind of trouble have you unfilial sons caused in the future!"
Aaron pouted, annoyed:
"According to the prophecies, we will overthrow you, set all the constellations in the sky ablaze, and usher in a new era. But according to the interpretations of some priests, because the future must inevitably become the present, the new era will never arrive."
"I suppose it will become an era of stalemate, like a clogged cesspool—something we just have to make do with, hoping to find a solution before it overflows."
Anda covered his face, pained:
"You really should learn how to phrase things, Aaron. Neither your mother nor I use such crude language. How did your metaphors become so corrupted?"
"Malum, tonight you are to investigate the movements of Erst. Record the cities he has visited. It would be best to obtain information on the local garrisons and their grain supplies. We will not intervene in the war directly, but we must ensure our intelligence remains fluid."
Malum bowed his head respectfully: "I am always at your service."
Anda brought over the box of "blood money" and took out ten debens of silver:
"Solve the problem in the human way. You are an Ultramarine; your eloquence should be sufficient. I do not want to find too many unexplainable things in human history."
Malum was deeply moved, piously extending his hands to receive the silver.
Father, have you witnessed the Emperor's recognition of us!
Aaron put away the nail, his cheeks puffed:
"It seems you have everything planned out, so why can't you just tell me clearly what you're doing? I am your son, after all. Do you have to keep everything from me and force me to discover it myself?"
*And when I do discover it on my own, the reaction I choose will no longer be up to you, Father.*
Aaron thought to himself, then began to miss his younger brothers.
He hoped they wouldn't learn such bad habits and would always say exactly what was on their minds.
"By the way, what are we having for lunch? The people here sometimes only eat twice a day."
He rubbed his stomach, his focus quickly consumed by the sensation of hunger.
In this, he was exactly like his father; no matter how tense things became, the mention of food allowed for an instant change of pace.
According to Aaron's conjecture, this was like a safe word for his parents' arguments, originally intended to avoid leaving their growing son hungry.
As it turned out, they never thought of this when they were arguing. It was only after Aaron grew older and started saying he was hungry that it eased things a little.
*Sigh, thinking about it like this, could my mother be just as unreliable?*
Aaron suddenly felt a terrible, chilling sensation crawling up his spine.
*N-no, not that!*
Far away in the Temple of Apollo in Macedonia, Erda was drinking fine wine behind a curtain, enjoying a massage from her handmaiden.
She wondered how her son was growing up. Was he to come of age this year or next?
No matter. She had left only when her son was old enough to ask for food when he was hungry; that fool Anda couldn't possibly fail to keep him alive.
How was that fool doing now—the one who had been pestering her for a thousand years, insisting that their son was the hope for humanity's salvation?
Once her son came of age, she would set off south to retrieve him.
She could sense Aaron's existence in the depths of her mind.
This was not within the Warp that Anda spoke of, but a connection belonging solely to mother and son.
(Note: When Erebus later finds Erda, he is horrified that her power can be unleashed without passing through the Warp.)
Afraid to dwell on whether his mother was as unreliable as his father, Aaron prepared to ask Malum some questions before he left.
He was very worried about whether Lorgar might be overplaying his hand. Why was he testing Erebus?
If he sensed that Erebus had ulterior motives, why not take measures instead of granting him command of the troops?
Aaron took a large bite of Egyptian grilled fish. The fish here wasn't particularly fresh, but it was seasoned heavily, and the texture was quite good.
"Malum, I have some questions to ask you. If I were a general, and one of my subordinates was quite capable, but I suspected he had ulterior motives—if he then requested command of an independent force, should I grant it to him?"
"You are soldiers who have led armies into battle; you should have experience with this."
Malum stopped his feigned eating. This topic was sensitive.
He suddenly felt that the dirt on the ground might be edible, so why was he sitting here eating fish with Aaron?
Was the Emperor's Firstborn alluding to his father’s *Codex Astartes*?
It was no wonder Malum was worried, as the disputes among the Astartes brothers over the *Codex* had once been rampant after his father’s return.
After all, the pain the Great Heresy had brought to the Imperium was too profound. When it came to the division of military power, it was difficult for Malum to answer as an individual Space Marine.
"Forgive me, Aaron, I cannot answer your doubts."
Malum decided to offer a sincere apology. He could have used the vast cultural archives of Ultramar to recount many deeds as examples.
But he had no right to guide the Emperor's Firstborn, fearing he might impart the wrong ideas.
After all, the Firstborn encountered other Primarchs in his dreams, and he knew, more or less, where some of the prejudices other Primarchs held against his father during the Great Crusade had originated.
Aaron could only sigh and pat Malum on the shoulder:
"Sigh, never mind, never mind. You're not like that old man. He knows everything but just won't tell me. You, at least, are sincere. Be careful when you go out tonight. Although I don't think anyone can rival a Custodian Guard like you, one must still avoid stumbling."
"Even the greatest hero can be undone by a trap."
Malum bowed his head respectfully, listening to his Prince's counsel.
Anda lay alone in his tent, holding a piece of grilled fish in one hand. His throat muscles were strong enough to ignore the fish bones.
He stared blankly into the void with pupils radiating an endless golden light.
In a part of the Warp anchored to the current timeline, a Tzeentchian daemon named Bilani, constructed primarily from a Komodo dragon, was painting itself with red blood and donning a lion-fur decoration to disguise itself as Sekhmet.
The mortal Bilani was watching was Erst.
"Troublesome, troublesome. Why must I disguise myself as those headless fools who only know how to hack and slash? Sigh, my master won't let me perceive the future, yet makes me go to such lengths to deal with a weak monkey psyker."
Bilani glanced at Anda, who was slacking off. He looked unremarkable; not even that handsome.
It recalled the scene before being sent here. Within the great palace of Tzeentch, atop the silver tower, the Great Changer of Ways had issued the command:
"You, go and kill the Emperor."
Pointless. A mere monkey calling himself an Emperor; this fragile race hadn't even managed to leave their home planet.
How powerful could a monkey's Emperor be?
Yet, why did the Changer of Ways forbid it from knowing the future?
And why must it wear a disguise and not reveal its true identity?
It could not appear at any point in the future; its time had been locked by Tzeentch himself, forcing it to move forward step by step through this era.