Finally, thanks to Radeon, I have a good word processor. This will allow me to churn out the much anticipated fluff. I wrote two pages before I had to stop myself and prevent burning out, or fixating on a tangent, etc.. The prologue is mostly finished. The story is the tale of a young Marine/Librarian named Icarus, who is Equerry to the Chief Librarian Remus, and who is told the tales of the chapter, as he witnesses it be torn apart from within. C&C welcome and encouraged, but phrase them kindly please.
Prologue: The Quickening
Incense clouded the air. Thick and cloying, it smelled slightly of frankincense and myrrh, though with an acrid tang the initiate could not identify. Hours he had been left in this chamber, told to wait the coming of his Lord, of whom he was to be equerry to. Sweat trickled down his back and beaded on his upper lip. The light, white linen robe he was was slick and clinging to his shoulders as he kept his eyes glued to the altar before him. Silently he murmured prayers to the Emperor.
As he looked at his hand, curled in a fist and still throbbing from the branding of the electoo of an Aquilla clutching lightning bolts, Icarus wondered who had summoned him. The fact that he had been allowed in the fore of the ship, in the quarters of the full marines themselves, meant he had been picked out amongst his other brothers in training. Picked as as possessing something others did not.
Jerking back from his revere, Icarus forced his eyes back to the aquilla standing on the simple chest high plinth in the middle of the room. Already he could feel the work of the Apothecaries upon his body. He was taller, slept only an hour each night, and could hear his own heart beating in his ribcage, which was slowly knitting and fusing together.
As he contemplated these gifts, and his eyes transversed the many synth skin grafts and scars of training, he wondered what could he have more? He was to be a Space Marine, a Divine Warrior of the Emperor. Immortal, Impervious to all but the worse harm, and a warrior who knew no fear or defeat, only victory in service to the Immortal God Emperors name.
The Masters at the Gladitorium had said he was to be trained by the Librarians. He knew of these men, fearsome psykers of power. Especially in his Chapter, how even that though felt odd – that he should belong to such a force, the Librarians were noted for a strength that approached dangerous. Many were the tales the teaching machines had indoctrinated him with of the frailty of the psyker, and the dangers of the daemon.
Perhaps he was to be one of them? They said his reactions to dangers were uncanny, and his fury un-canny for such a novice. His mind drifted back to tales of the noble Primarch Sanguinius, the Father of the Chapter, whose visage stared down on him from an arched stained glass window behind the altar. Would he follow in such mens footsteps? Could he even dare?
A hiss sounded from in the shadows of the vaulted room, and quickly Icarus lowered his eyes, his prayers halting. Heavy, deliberate steps sounded, each booming and echoing, and making Icarus tremble in fear despite the countless years of war and horrors he had already faced. His master had come.
A black ceramite gauntlet reached down, and Icarus felt his chin lifted, and quickly his eyes closed. He felt a slow, steady pressure build behind his eyes, like a sneeze that would not come, that built to a sensation of a nail driven through his nasal passages. Suddenly he felt blood trickle down his upper lip, tasting the coppery, metallic tang as his mouth ripped open in a silent scream. Visions of winged things, grotesque and twisted dance before him.
Some were pustules of flesh that oozed corruption and filth, veined bags of skin that pulsated and leaked puss like some mockery of life. Other were soft, sensuous, their voices like honeyed music, their eyes smokey lust personified. Other things shambled, leapt and cavorted. The were every color, and yet none. There limbs changed, re-arranged and were not there, and the mouths opened to reveal prismatic innards, their eyes gaping maws to forbidden knowledge that would drive a man mad.
Suddenly, from within, Icarus felt an obscene rage build. Fire coursed where blood once ran, and he was ten, nay twenty feet tall! Muscles of corded steel coiled and bunched, and he crushed worlds in his grips. His realm was eternal, and never ending. Charnel houses of battle moaned his name in praise, and he laughed in delight. Power so real he could feel it, the heady scent of slaughter permeating his senses as he literally laughed now, his eyes wide and black, staring at the ceiling as his head lolled.
Suddenly a fist lurched out, clad in obsidian plate. The blow sent him reeling, the power faded, and Icarus felt himself skid and slide across the floor, slamming into the altar and wincing as he felt several of what remained of his ribs shatter, and his elbow wrench at an angle he was sure it shouldn't have. Something still burned, though it was not his body. His mind felt as if it were a small sun, and everything seemed brighter, sharper, more detailed. There was something in him, a pulse he had not felt before, and it was quickening with each second. For the first time he dared to look up at the man sent to raise him to his right hand and teach him. And he let out a whimper. It was true.
'Stand up man.. You are of my planet. You are Sentarii, and for ten thousand years and more your people fought for the Emperor of Man. Have pride in that. Your sin is the rage boiling within you. But you are seduced along that path because you feel inadequate. All around you, you see great men doing great things, and you fear you can never be worthy. I am here to shepherd you young one. Your rage is a tool, to be used. But if you can not overcome it, it will be your damnation. Now come. Sit.'
With that, the figure walked to before the altar, thew pews in front of it gestured two with a flick of his massive fist. He could have been the twin of the Primarch himself. His hair, long and blonde, was loose and hung freely, unlike the traditional shaved head or top knot of his people. The face was high brow and sharp boned, the aqualine nose and patrician set to the face said to be a relic of the fact their society was the remnants of a once vast warrior Empire that dominated Terra long ago in the Ancient days before the Emperor had come.
What made Icarus whimper were the eyes. There were no pupils, merely whites. And about these eyes flickered blue witch flame, barely there to his view, but giving the face a ghostly pale light that only made the sharp fangs in his sudden smile make him look a monster of the courtesans theater.
Wiping his lip of blood, the sudden fear replaced by an overwhelming sense of shame and resignation, Icarus stood and bowed. His short black hair was not long enough for such a striking mane as the one before him, though he had preserved the ancient warrior traditions in that one strand was beaded at his temple and hung to his shoulder.
His family had kept this tradition through the ages, and only in death was it cut free from the warriors head, to be burned as his body was buried. Each bead in the braid symbolized something of note or fame, though only his family would know what. He bore five minuscule red beds, one black, and a green. He had bested five men above his station, slain a fell beast of the wild, and fled battle once.
Icarus genuflected, making the sign of the aquilla to the altar and idol as he lowered himself to sit in the pew. Already he could slowly feel the chemistry of his body reacting, the bones knitting themselves in an itchy process. The man turned, his hands on either side of the altar.
'I shall tell you of our Chapter now. Of the men who have come before you, and forged a bloody path of holy war across the Galaxy in His Name. I shall tell you of who you are, and who you are to become. You are a son of Sentarus, and you will become a Space Marine. A Son of Sanguinius. A Black Saints Marine. Our coming is swift and deadly, and our warcrys are never heard, for the enemy is dieing as we utter them. We fight for the Emperor. For His Will and Honor, Our Life and Breath.
'I shall tell you first, of our Fathers and the founding. How we came to be, and what we are. Who you are. For a Chapter is no stronger than the lowliest initiate, and no weaker than the strongest Veteran. This, young one, is the story of our beginning...'